Naruto: The sands of time
by SDI hyper
Summary: Happens at the same time as ‘Water’. Gaara of the sand discovers how to use sand to control time, It may not do him to much good but it will could help a few others. But changing the past may have side effects GaaraxNaruto,Rock LeexShikamaru,KakashixIruk
1. Default Chapter

Chapter 1: Confessions of a desperate Hart

It was a small room, just about enough space for him to fit inside. He could barley move, a room this small didn't seem like it was worth building. Maybe that was the point, it was small, most likely used for storage, but it would be difficult to get anything in and out of it. Considering it was 20 feet under ground. Someone one had gone through the trouble of digging it out, and they had did a poor job, The north, west and east walls looked like they could cave in any second. It looked like they had already. All that remained was a small hour glass on a shelf on the south wall.

Gaara looked around this place carefully, it seemed just too risky to come down here at all. He picked up the hour glass and looked over it , it was big enough to count off about 5 minutes. He would have left it, if he hadn't saw small markings on the side. They were obviously to small for him to read and he wouldn't have usually bothered with it but curiosity drove him to take it with him.

Gaara jumped up the small hole that lead to the room, coming to the surface of a small forest. The hole was barely seeable, he wouldn't have noticed it if he didn't hear the sound of someone down there. The voice didn't sound as if it was in trouble, but there was something strange about it, and that peaked his curiosity. In fact it had been more then one voice when he though a about it. One of them sounded as exactly like his, another one even call his name and the similar voice responded.

That was all he could make out of it, and something like that warranted a search. But he clearly found nothing. Those walls couldn't have caved in with out him hearing it. Either some one was messing with him, or he was hallucinating. He couldn't have been hallucinating, he had herd the voices too clearly. But, he wouldn't put it past himself to hallucinate.

Either way, all found was an hour glass with small writing, it didn't seem worth looking in to. Gaara looked up at the sky, the sun was starting to set, and it was summer so it had to be about 9 o'clock. He'd been out all day training, though he didn't hold it against Naruto, he still was beaten by him. Even in a fully transformed state, Naruto still found a way to defeat him.

It was quite an experience to say the least, but he was actually grateful to Naruto. It had opened his eyes in a psychological sense, before he had tunnel vision. He had only one goal, and that was to kill everyone other than himself. Well, Naruto effectively destroyed the tunnel and widened his vision, opened his mind.

Gaara leapt through the trees, moving with ease through the thick branches. He could say this, it was a hell of a lot less boring when wanted to kill everything. It wasn't funny, and it wasn't meant to be. But it was true, he didn't have a reason in life anymore, if there was no direction of some sort in life. There was no purpose of living, he had realized that right after Naruto defeated him. 'This is the worst pain I know, where one's existence is called unnecessary….' Those worse rang in his mind over and over.

He couldn't keep going like this, it was driving him insane. He had nothing but time, time was loneliness. Loneliness and a useless life was insanity. He had Tenmari and Kankurou, but it didn't seem to do him any good. Maybe that could be his goal in life, to find someone to end this loneliness. It would make living a lot more tolerable and it sure as hell wouldn't be easy. After he did that…..the future was open to anything.

"Gaara? Where have you been?" Tenmari asked hastily on his return. They hadn't gone back to the village yet, they were on there way more or less. Now they were staying in a small cabin hidden in the forest, the trees around it where thick so you could only see it from up close.

The girl tapped her fan against her heel impatiently. "Nowhere." Gaara said plainly, walking past her hand in to the house. Tenmari was worried about him, he was not himself, which may not have been a bad thing. He was obviously changing, and she wanted him to go the right way….this time. Gaara was somewhat reluctant to return to the village, he wanted to hold it off as long as possible. He never like being there, he was always feared and hated, he knew most people would kill him if they had the chance…No…all of them would kill him if they had the chance

Thinking about things always seemed to make it worse.

He didn't care before, he killed anyone for just about any reason he could think of. Now that he had been taken down, he could end up just like any of those people he had killed. He suddenly cared what they thought of him on some level. Naruto had beaten him, Sasuke had done a decent job himself. If both of them came after him at the same time….

Which his why he trained, but at this point he didn't care, it was just something he did.

Half way to the door he remembered the hour glass in his pocket. Gaara thought about it for a moment before he turned around and tapped Tenmari on the shoulder, "Huh?….What's this?" Tenmari looked over the hourglass, looking closely at the words. "hmm…" She squinted and strained her eyes to read them.

"Can you read it?" Gaara asked. She looked up and nodded. "It says….Gaara and Naruto forever….and the date is from a few years ago….?" Tenmari looked up at Gaara with an evil smirk.

"You and Naruto? Is there something I shouldn't know?" She asked, almost laughing. Gaara shook his head defensively. "No….I found it in a hole, I don't know what it's about…." Gaara took the Hourglass back, looking over it once before going in to the house. He honestly didn't know anything about it, and it was strange…

He made it to the safety of his room and locked the door, making it clear he didn't want to be disturbed. He rarely was anyway.

Gaara sat down in a chair next to a desk, in-between a window and a bed. He liked this place better then the village, he never had to deal with anything here.

Now he couldn't get his mind off of Naruto. Why would there names be on something like this? Why would something like this be on anything?

"…_Being alone…Being incomplete…What you must feel…What your pain must be, I understand that…."_

That's the first thing he remember when he thought of Naruto. Knowing some one else understood what had happened to him, what had driven an innocent child to become this. But it also brought up the words of the only person that seemed to love him, that took care of him, the very person who had kept him sane as a child and effectively took away that sanity.

"_Just love yourself. Fight only for your sake."_

Who also tried to kill him… He still lived off those words in spite of that. That's how he defined his existence until now… Naruto was just like him…but he had something different…

"_But… For the people that are precious to me, to be able to……The people that are precious to me…If you are hurting them…..And if your are trying to kill them… I will stop you…"_

Gaara didn't think it was possible for some one to be powerful by fighting for someone else. Naruto was just like him, they mirrors of each other, equal, but opposite. So what made Naruto different? He fought for people other then himself, he valued their life more then he did his own. Gaara didn't have to worry about that, he didn't value his life right now as much as he use to.

Needing those close to you. An affectionate hart that gives all of itself for those important people, and is watching over them…Love…That's why Naruto was so strong.

"_Wh…What sad eyes, very lonely eyes… Him…a monster….just like me._

_I loathe everyone. I couldn't understand who I was or why I existed as a hated being. Since I learned Nine-Tails exists within me, The villagers seemed to look at me with eyes colder then ever…It was so painful….But…Now I have people that acknowledge me, I can be unconcerned about being possessed or being treated coldly. Because…I'm not alone anymore! I had no idea how happy that would make me…I felt blessed from the bottom of my hart…I'm allowed to be here knowing that I do exist made me feel relieved. That's why it kills me to think about how it used to be… That pain is not usual, it's pitch black hell. If…If I were still alone……For this reason I can sympathize. To them I am only a relic of the past they want to exterminate. Then why do I exist and continue living? I came to a conclusion… "_

Gaara opened his eyes, he had dreamt of only one thing…Naruto. He herd his voice and saw his face.

He lifted himself off the bed, pushing back a stray strand of hair from his eyes. He had to do something…. First he had to talk to Naruto. He was the only person who ever saw his side of it, who knew about the pain and anger, the lonely ness and suffering. For that, he was even more grateful to Naruto.

There was a knock on the door,.

Gaara unlocked the door and opened it, finding Tenmari on the other side. She was holding a tray with different medicine and bandages to replace the old ones. It had only been a day since the fight, parts of his body actually still hurt, mostly his head. "Good morning Gaara, I got some things that will help your wounds out. I'm sorry I couldn't find the medicine earlier "

She handed him a small bottle filled with liquid and he quickly drank it. His headache flared up quickly and painfully, making a small pillar of sand involuntarily jump out. It smashed through the tray, just grazing her shoulder and leaving a cut behind. The pain stopped completely and Gaara looked up reluctantly at Tenmari, who was now drenched in the medicine. "Sorry…" Gaara apologized.

"I mean to tell you about that before you took it. It was my fault, don't worry about it. I'll go change cloths and prepare some more medicine." Tenmari turned and left the room, leaving the pile of broken glass debris there to clean up when she got back.

Gaara sighed at himself, he was really getting sick of this to say the lest.

His eyes drifted to the desk next to his bed and on to the hour glass. He looked at the sand inside for a moment, all if it had emptied in to the bottom. He narrowed his eyes and the sand started to flow upward in to the top compartment. Gaara's vision started to blur a little and distort.

"What he hell?…." It was over quickly though, He shook his head and returned his gaze to the ground. That's when he noticed that the broken glass that was there before was gone now. That was strange… he knew no one had touched it. His eye did become erratic before, he may have been seeing things.

Gaara reached down on the floor were the glass had been, there was nothing now. He jumped when he herd a knock on the door, strangely enough the door was locked again.

"What's happening…." Gaara walked over to the door, unlocking it and opening it. He saw Tenmari standing there with a tray of medicine. The first thing he looked for was the cut from earlier, it of course was gone to.

He didn't know what to think now, Tenmari couldn't have healed, changed he clothes and prepaid medicine that fast.

"Good morning Gaara, I got some things that will help your wounds out. I'm sorry I couldn't find the medicine earlier " She seemed confused when Gaara gave her a strange look. 'What….is going on!' He needed to check something out, see if what he thought was happening really was happening.

Sand shot out from Gaara's body, demolishing the tray and grazing her shoulder, drawing blood in to places Before she could say anything about it, Gaara apologized half heartedly and shut the door, turning and walking over to the hourglass on his dresser. He looked at, concentrated on it again, making the sand rise from the bottom of it to the glass to the top.

Just as before, Gaara's vision started to blur a little and distort in a manner similar to what heat did to air.

Gaara waited for a moment, watching as the sand in the hour glass started to slowly filter down. It seemed as if nothing would happen, until one minute passed and another knock came at the door. Gaara expectantly walked over to the door, finding it locked again.

And again he found Tenmari on the other side, she was holding a tray with different medicine and bandages to replace the old ones. And of course her clothes were dry and the cut from last time was completely gone.

"Good morning Gaara, I-" She stopped when Gaara started to say every word that came out of mouth "-Got some things that will help your wounds out. I'm sorry I couldn't find the medicine earlier?"

She looked at him curiously. "Gaara…is something wrong?" She asked. He shook his head. "I'm fine…"

Gaara sat on his bed, staring at the hourglass, he tried turning it upside down manually, but nothing happened. He had relived the same 5 minutes at lest 20 times, trying different things each time but every time he lifted the sand up it all remained the same.

Gaara went back in time for time twenty-first time now, trying something completely different now. He watched the sand start to slowly filter down to the bottom of the glass, this time he turned the glass over again so the sand was on the top was on the bottom. Then he used his control over sand to lift it to the top of the glass.

It took longer this time, Tenmari didn't show up for another 9 minutes this time. Gaara realized that he could go farther and farther back in time just by flipping the glass over and doing it again. He could go back…but could he go forward? He could try it but he would need something to mark it….

The sunlight drifted threw the thick trees outside and shined on his face….the sun.

Gaara sat on a branch of a tall tree neat the house, leaning back against the trunk and letting one leg hand lazily off the limb. It was around 8 am and the sun was set in that position in the sky. He couldn't see it from where he was, but if all went as expected….

Gaara held the hourglass in one hand, dropping the sand from the bottom of the glass to the top then flipping it over and doing the same. He did it 12 more times, and sure enough, the sunlight shined through the trees higher in the sky then it was before.

Gaara looked down and saw Kankuro walking bellow. "Kankuro." He called down. He watched him look up. "Find me an hourglass, a large one."


	2. Chapter 2 Angel

Chapter 2: Angel

Kankuro came back an hour latter with an Hourglass about the size of his chest. It was small, but the glass was large enough on both sides to count off 5 hours. "This was the largest one that I could find. What do you need it for?" Kankuro handed it to Gaara.

"Nothing important." He said, climbing down from the tree and walking away.

When Kankuro realized that he would most likely be gone for a while he asked "Where are you going?" Gaara kept walking through the forest, "Nowhere." He replied, looking over the hourglass with a concentrated look.

The sand poured to the top of the glass in a rush of speed, his vision blurred and distorted like it had all of the times before. When it cleared again, it was the early morning, it was still dark and the sun hadn't risen yet. Only around 4 am.

This was an amazing power, He could go back and forward in time as he pleased. He could correct any mistake, stop anything from happening, even relive any moment he wanted. The only catch was that he would be in that particular spot when he went back and forth in time. That meant he would have to go to a certain spot to relive it. Minor setback, he could just go back even farther.

Now that thought about it, this power was useless to him besides in battle. He didn't want to relive any moment in his life, the last thing he wanted to do was anything in his life twice. In fact, even if he did go back in the past in change some part of his life, it wouldn't change him. It would change the world around him, but he would still remain the same. It wouldn't change what he had learned before, or how he felt before, or what he was feeling now.

'Why am I even bothering with this?' Gaara thought as he sprang threw the dark trees, his mind was focused on thought instead of where he was going. But he moved trough with out any problem, not missing a step in his directions as if his body was moving by itself.

Sure it would save time, but other then that he didn't really need it. He wasn't the type of person to.

He stopped thinking and continued to through the forest, moving faster then before. He had just confirmed every reason that he shouldn't think about things. Bad things always seemed to end up being worse when he though about them. But what else did he have to do? It wasn't exactly a short walk to the Village of the Leaf, he was glad they hadn't gone all the way back to the Village of the Sand. If they weren't halfway it would have been a hell of a lot longer.

If he kept up his pace, he would be there in a few hours, which would mean a few seconds for him in real time.

After a few minutes of mindless running, his mind started to think again on it's own. He couldn't stop it, so he just give in. He tried to think of something other then what he had been thinking of since yesterday. Maybe he could do something that didn't result in pain on himself and/or others.

Music maybe. There isn't a person that doesn't like some type of music. All he had to do was find that type. Or better yet he could learn how to play an instrument, something like that was time consuming and took practice and hard work. It would take years to master. It was perfect. And if he mastered one instrument, he could start learning another. He could even learn to sing…

The thought of that was laughable, in fact it almost made him laugh. The thought of himself singing was hilarious…..Well, apparently thinking had it's upsides, who would have thought.

Music…that seemed realistic, he would have to try it one day. But first he would have to find something he liked first. That would involve him actually listening to it first, he never actual listened to any music in his life. Sure he had the chance, but he didn't bother with something as trivial as that.

It was around 9 when he got to the Village of Leaf. Few people were out, he managed to avoid many of them. He didn't want to deal with it, he didn't want anyone to recognize him. The cold, hateful looks, the fear. It was just like back at home, if he could call it home it that, a place like that couldn't be call as such. He couldn't deal with this today, it would just be easier if he stayed away…..

"You can't be serous."

Gaara herd a familiar voice behind him, he sighed in turned around and found nothing. Then he looked up and found Kakashi sitting on a roof with a book in his hand. 'Damnit' He really was trying to avoid everyone, he was near the top of the list, right under Sasuke.

Gaara watched him waiting for what he was going to say.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm not here to start anything."

"I knew that, you probably wouldn't be carrying _that_ if you were." Kakashi said, looking back down at the book. "So what do you want?"

"………" He contemplated going back in time and avoiding this, but odds were that he would run in to him sometime while he was here, he might as well have dealt with it now.

Kakashi looked at him questioningly, apparently he was still expecting an answer. "I'm looking for some one." he said finally.

"You didn't pick a good time, look around."

Gaara took a look around the city for the first time, it wasn't in good shape after the resent attacks. People were still rebuilding, the town was stretched thinly. Mostly everyone was out on missions, it was only a matter of time before Kakashi was sent on one. There was no guarantee that Naruto was still here.

"………"

"Alright then, you better hurry."

"Your letting me go?"

"Yeah, but be warned…If you try anything I'll kill you."

Gaara expected it, he shrugged it off and kept going.

Naruto opened his eyes, slowly sitting up with a small yawn and a stretch. He was wearing a white shirt and white pants along with a black hat, his usual bed clothing. Naruto turned toward the window sleepily, squinting from the sunlight. He tossed the black hat aside, scratching his head a little. Starting to contemplate the thought of going back to sleep, but by the time he decided to do so he was already out of bed, walking toward the refrigerator.

Before he could find his usual cup ramen, a knock came at the door. He groaned, ramen or door? If it was important they could wait, but if it was important so could the ramen. Naruto closed the refrigerator, shaking off any sleepiness on the way. He almost jumped out of his clothing when he saw Gaara on the other side.

"Wha-What the hell are you doing here!" He shouted, his surprise quickly converting to anger. "I need to talk to you." Gaara said as non-threateningly as possible. Naruto didn't know if he should attack or wait, attack was starting to weigh more on the scale. "What hell could you possibly have to say to me! You tried to kill me!" Naruto yelled, his mind started to replay the day before instinctively.

His body un tensed when he remembered the end of the battle. He studied Gaara's face carefully, coming upon those same lonely eyes as before. It was more intense then before, though his facial expression didn't show it. It was actually hard to watch, He looked like he was about to crack if he already hadn't.

Naruto sighed, looking over him alertly. He didn't have that urn with him that he usually carried, that could be a good sign. "Alright." Naruto said, letting him in but still watching him closely just incase he tried to do anything. A large part of his mind doubted that he would, Gaara didn't seem like the type of person to stab you in the back. He would do it in you face, you would know when he was trying to kill you.

And he wasn't

Naruto took the seat at the opposite side of Gaara though he didn't sit down. "Why did you attack the Leaf?" Naruto asked, the anger was back in his voice. Gaara looked back at him, a hidden remorse "I was ordered to." He sounded sorry, but that didn't mean much. Naruto looked out of the window at the village surrounding it.

He was silent for a moment, thinking on Gaara had just said. Everything depended on perspective, what looked bad from Naruto's may have not seemed that way from Gaara.

"An order! You can't just go killing all of these innocent people off of an order!" Naruto shouted.

Gaara raised an eye brow, he knew that given the situation, Naruto probably would have done the same. "Really? So if you were ordered to help assassinate the head of the Sand. You wouldn't do it." Naruto was about to answer but Gaara cut him of "Keep in mind what just happened to the Leaf."

Naruto folded his arms, he had to stop and think for a moment. All of the people hurt and killed in this attack, and it also set the stage for the death of the Hokage. If everyone wasn't dealing with the sand, they could have helped, maybe saved his life. Gaara was right, he would have.

"Alright, what do you want to talk about?" Naruto's voice held less anger, it was almost gone now. "It's about what you said during the fight…."

"…_That's why it kills me to think about how it used to be… That pain is not usual, it's pitch black hell. If…If I were still alone……For this reason I can sympathize…."_

Naruto sat down, leaning back in the chair watching Gaara's face closely. It was those eyes almost like looking in to a mirror of how he used to be. He knew the pain Gaara was going through, only it was worse now, much worse then it ever was for him. Naruto only closed his eyes and folded his arms again. "It's hard huh?"

Gaara looked at him, giving no answer but it was clearly understood. "I understand what's like." Naruto said, his eyes looking down at the table. He really couldn't blame Gaara for seeking him out, he was desperate if he knew it or not. Why else would he come back to a placed that hated him….which doesn't say much because every place hated him, feared him, wanted nothing to do with him. Like this place and Naruto.

"I can't take it anymore." Gaara said softly, almost to himself. Naruto looked up at him. "Huh?" "I don't want to kill anymore, but my life has use now. It's meaningless. Why do I still exist?" Gaara was the one looking down now, his fist were clinched tightly now.

"Gaara…."

"My reason to live was….I guess the only think that kept me from all of this….Now that my existence is meaningless, and I'm completely alone…"

"Your not _completely_ alone." Naruto said, he rubbed his head, a large grin forming. "I know what it's like, so you got me at lest."

Gaara looked up him, suddenly very confused, "You….but you can't, you don't like me enough." Gaara said in an even tone. Naruto shook his head, "Was never mad at you, I knew why you acted they way you did…I mean you were just like me…..you were looking for someone…so you wouldn't be alone…" Naruto wasn't use to saying anything like this, but it was going to a good cause so he adjusted.

Gaara sighed, mixed with anguish and a slight bit of happiness. "Naruto."

Naruto didn't want anyone to go through that dark hell of loneness and despair, "Seriously, I can't stand to see even you like this…." Gaara wasn't used to anyone being this worried about him, it was even coming from Naruto. He didn't care if it was fake, he needed it at this point, how desperate he was even surprised him.

"What could I possibly do to make you feel better?"

"Wha?"

"You herd me."

"…..Thank you."

"For what?"

"You've already done enough for me." Gaara smiled for the first time…a real smile.

"Ha! Thought that would do it."

"What?"

" I just said whatever I would want to hear. I had to get to you somehow, I couldn't stand to see you like that. Seriously."

Gaara just looked at him and laughed, he couldn't help himself. Naruto looked at him, his surprised look changed in a confused one , it didn't seem possible before but it was happening. Naruto smiled, rubbing his head again, feeling a certain sense of pride right now. He actually was actually enjoying being with Gaara.

A comfortable silence fell over them, Gaara wouldn't have traded this moment for anything. He felt relaxed, un-tense for the first time. His mental guard was slowly lowering, something he was starting to wish had stayed up. Naruto sighed and watched him, seeing the whole process happening in front of his eyes. He knew what was going to happen, he had almost went through the same thing.

Everything Gaara had ever repressed and ignored, pushed away, all of it came rushing back like a flood. All of the emotions, memories, pain he should have felt at times and didn't, he couldn't hold it back any longer. Gaara silently shook his head and closed his eyes. His fist clinched tighter and tighter until his hand began to tremble. His fingernails dug in to his palm almost hard enough to draw blood.

His eyes shut tighter and tighter but they suddenly shot open. The tension drain from his body and his fist loosen when he felt Naruto's hand on his shoulder. He looked back at the boy, not realizing how he looked right now. "It's alright, I know how it feels." Naruto said softly, a small sympathetic smile and warm eyes looking down on Gaara. Naruto knew what he was going through very well, next came anger, which in Gaara's case may become…dangerous.

Gaara clinched his eyes again, slamming his fist on the table, breaking it in half. Naruto didn't mind….right now, he'd probably be pissed about it later….he kept that smile and warm look on Gaara, which is what he needed most. "Who are you to fuck with me like this Damnit!" Gaara yelled. "Every word I said to you I meant." Naruto said in a warm tone, still unchanging and supporting With a still confident undertone that almost sounded arrogant. He couldn't be mad with Gaara if he tried, Gaara had every right to be angry, to think what he thought.

"Your lying!" Gaara shouted, he couldn't believe that someone would be this kind, this friendly with him. Everyone in the past had hated him, feared him, sought out ways to kill him. Even his Aunt, the only person he ever cared for wanted to do nothing but kill him, make his life miserable. How could Naruto understand? Someone who had just tried to kill him also?

"You know I'm not, we're too alike for me to lie about something like this-"

"Shut up!" Gaara was standing over him in second.

"-we both wanted the same thing."

"Shut up!" Gaara grabbed him by his shirt, lifting him off the ground. Naruto's expression didn't change though, he knew Gaara didn't want to hurt him, and wouldn't.

"That's why you came back here to talk to me."

"Damnit…." Gaara dropped Naruto, who landed on his feet. Some how Gaara lost his balance and fell to his knees, pounding his fist in to the ground.

Naruto placed a comforting hand on his back, feeling another sense of accomplishment. Mainly because Gaara hadn't tried to kill him yet.

Gaara looked up at Naruto, his eyes full of sadness, anguish. Naruto looked back at him questioningly. Gaara only grabbed on to his shirt again, pulling him in to kiss, slipping his tongue in to Naruto's open mouth. Feeling Naruto kiss him back, still looking in to Naruto's eyes.

"I never felt like this about anyone…I don't know what this is but I know I can't go on with out you with me." Gaara confessed, slowly looking up from the ground up to Naruto. Who blinked a few times in confusion before grinning wildly. Gaara's eyes narrowed as his expression changed from one of question to one of angry annoyment. He couldn't believe this!

"You don't want to be with me, you just think that now. You'll get over it, Trust me." Naruto said leaving Gaara and heading to the refrigerator to once again search for his Cup Raman. It wasn't a no, and he had kissed back, very confusing. "What? No, I'm serous! You don't know how I feel, I need you." Gaara said.

Naruto found what he was looking for , an pouring some hot water in to the cup and closing the seal. "Come on, you regret it a week later, I went through this already." Naruto told him, waiting impatiently for the raman to cook. Gaara was next to him now, he pushed him against the wall, kissing Naruto fiercely, the other boy kissed back, wrapping his arms around Gaara.

He felt like everything they were doing felt right, like everything he was doing pulled him deeper into Naruto. He would give anything to stay in this moment, right now Naruto meant the world to him. He was all he had, this was the first time he ever had anyone, or anything that felt so good, and he wasn't about to let it go so easily.

Gaara pulled back only when he needed air, looking down at Naruto pressed against the wall, holding his chest, panting slightly. Naruto had shown him a new part of himself, showing him things he didn't know about himself, or about anyone else. He knew he couldn't let this go.

"Aw Damnit!" Naruto said, pulling Gaara back down "You better not regret this!" He shouted before kissing him again. Naruto thought if they moved to fast, it would all end, even though he was never one to be cautious in anything. He wasn't good at doing it either, so he gave up and gave in. Gaara had never felt anything that felt so good, very few things ever did. He never felt anything that could compare to this physically and Naruto was the cause. He'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy every second of it.

Gaara almost laughed out loud at the thought of him regretting this.

Naruto pulled himself off the wall, taking Gaara with him and blindly moving some place where they could eliminate the height difference. They fell back on to the bed, Gaara landing under Naruto. When he looked up he found Naruto looking down at him with a large grin, seemingly larger then any other he had seen before.

He hastily lifted Gaara's shirt off, leaning be back down in to another kiss, unbuttoning his own shirt as he did so. Gaara's pants begin to grow tighter as his erection grew, But the tension was relieved as Naruto pulled them off Revealing a long, hard cock that pressed against Naruto's stomach.

Naruto gave a quick smirk before he took Gaara's length in his mouth, getting an small gasp from him. Gaara ran his hand through Naruto's hair, gripping the yellow strands tightly. His mouth fell open and a small moan escaped as Naruto ran his tongue over Gaara's erection. Moving slowly and tauntingly.

Naruto finally gave up the teasing after a minute, holding on to Gaara's waist and pulling his whole length in to his mouth. Sucking it lightly, letting his tongue lick along the sides of Gaara's cock. The grip on his head became loser as Gaara pushed Naruto back, finding himself struggling to catch his breath.

Before Naruto could ask anything, Gaara lifted him by his sides. Moving so that Naruto was laying face down on the bed and he was on top of him. Another grin came on to Naruto's face, he had no objections whatsoever. The grin was replaced by a small hiss of pain when Gaara pushed his cock in to the small entrance. He wasn't exactly an expert in this and going on instinct but he figured that he should move slowly.

Naruto shifted some, feeling the small bit of pain shift in to pleasure. "Ah…Gaara."

Gaara buried his face in to Naruto's neck, leaving a trail of soft kisses behind. Naruto pressed his hands against the bed, driving his body back against Gaara's thrust and forcing the cock deeper into him. Gaara began to move faster, driving harder in to Naruto.

The tight body became even tighter, Naruto's grip became tighter and a small moan escaped from his open mouth. "Gaara!" Naruto came, spilling the liquid on to the bed, each time Gaara drove the cock inside of him, it forced another moan and more of his seed out of him.

Naruto lay docile under Gaara, "Harder." He managed to say in-between deep breaths. Gaara happily obeyed, clinching Naruto's waist and driving in harder. Pressing his body against Naruto's and pressing his lips to his in an awkward kiss. Feeling Naruto's tight body pull him in to his limit, his moaned in to the kiss, his whole body spasmed as he came.

After a moment of catching his breath, Gaara rolled off of Naruto, laying to his side. He looked over to the smaller boy who had another grin across his face. "Naruto?" Gaara said, looking in to his eyes. "Huh?" He thought about it for a moment, then turned his gaze up to the ceiling. "Nothing, I'll tell you later." A small smirk grew across his face that made Naruto wonder.

"What is it?" Naruto asked, crawling over to him and looking closely at his face. "Later." Gaara said almost teasingly. "Come on!" Naruto begged. "……." Gaara only turned over and closed his eyes. "Your enjoying this aren't you, well I can wait." Naruto laid the back his head against Gaara's back, giving up and going back to sleep. Which was what he wanted in the first place.

'Oh Damn, I forgot about the Raman….'


	3. Chapter 3 The domino effect

Chapter 3: The domino effect

"Are you serous!" Naruto shouted excitedly, Now fully cloth in his usual attire and finally eating his Raman. He nearly spit it out when he Gaara finally told him. "Yes." Gaara said calmly. "You can really go back and time? And Forward?" Naruto could hardly believe what he was hearing, he couldn't until he saw it. "Yes." Gaara said, still in his usual tone, even though Naruto was practically yelling.

"How?"

Gaara picked up the hourglass and set it on the table. "I all I have to do is control the sand in this hourglass." he explained, Naruto couldn't help but want to try it…until he noticed that he was out of Raman. He looked down at the empty cup and then up at Gaara with a large grin. Gaara knew what he was thinking, he wanted him to take him back in time, about when the cup was full.

Gaara wasn't sure he could take Naruto back in time with him, but he was about to try.

He concentrated on the sand, watching his vision distort as he moved a small amount from the bottom of the glass to the top. When he looked up again, he saw Naruto, with a full cup of Raman, staring at him excitedly.

"Are you serous!" Naruto shouted.

He had gone back, but Naruto hadn't. He silently looked at the glass and filtered the sand back in to it's place. "What happened? I thought you were going to go back in time?" Naruto asked, looking at him confusedly. "I did, you didn't." Naruto sighed at those words, he really did want to see it.

Gaara thought about it for a moment….maybe if……

Gaara got up from the bed, silently kissing Naruto while he used his powers to go back in time. He herd a questioning moan from Naruto when his vision distorted, it seemed that it worked. Gaara pulled back and Naruto rubbed his eyes, "What was that? Everything was really blurry…?" Naruto asked, looking down and noticing he had a full cup of Raman in his hand.

He grinned wildly, forgetting about his question and tasting the Raman, to make sure he wasn't imagining this. "Gaara, this is amazing!" Naruto set down his Raman and hugged Gaara tightly. There was so many things he wanted to do, things he wanted to see.

His expression suddenly became very serious, so much that it was actually starting to make Gaara worry. "Gaara…there is one thing I want to see….you think you can take me there." Naruto was very reluctant to ask. "Yes, what is it?" Gaara asked. "Well…I want to go back to when the Nine-tails attacked this village."

Gaara looked at him for a moment, he knew why Naruto would want to see it. He only nodded his answer, seeing Naruto smile at him again. "Thank you!"

But there was only one problem, Gaara had a 5 hour hourglass. He didn't know how far back he would be going, or how many times he would have to flip the glass. He could at lest get the answer to one of his questions. "How long ago was it?"

"12 years."

"This is a 5 hour hourglass, I would need to know how many times I need to shift the sand." The thought of the number made him shutter, he could guess over a few thousand.

"There is no way I'll be able to figure that out……But I know someone who could." Naruto said.

It took a lot of work to get Gaara across the village with out anyone seeing him. It was harder then it usually would have been since everyone was still repairing and rebuilding. That meant there was a person in about everywhere, in almost every alleyway and most roof tops. Those roofs that weren't being repaired where in a good view point of one that was. Unless they could make themselves invisible, they had a serous challenge.

Of course they did have Jutsu though, copying Jutsu that enabled Gaara to look like Naruto.

Which was all he could do, of course he could copy anyone else. But Kakashi was watching, he knew that Gaara had gone to find Naruto, and it had apparently went well. Because he saw Naruto hiding while Gaara changed in to Naruto, then Naruto waited a while then went to catch up with him. Then they repeated it over and over again, getting closer and closer to there destination each time.

If Naruto was trusting Gaara, and neither of them were hurt yet, then Gaara wasn't a threat to the Leaf. But he would have gotten suspicious if Gaara changed in to anyone else, which is why he didn't. And there was a chance that if Gaara had changed in to anyone else, that person might just see him. If he only changed in to Naruto, there was no chance of that happening.

They continued that process until they reached Shikamaru's house. They were lucky to find that his parents weren't home, they were helping with the repairs, and Shikamaru was avoiding them. He figured that there was enough people working on it already so there was no need to help. Of course he just didn't want to do the work.

He sighed when he herd a knock on the door, which had just woke up from a dream he was actually enjoying. He pulled himself off of his bed and trudged over to the door, he nearly jumped when he saw Naruto, and more importantly Gaara waiting on the other side. "What the hell!" He shouted, taking a steep back. "Hey wait, wait!" Naruto said hastily. "What his he doing here? And why are you with him?" Shikamaru asked, much calmer then before. There had to be a rational reason to why Gaara was here, and it better had been a damn good one.

"Let me explain first." Naruto said, looking up at him with almost a pleading look. Shikamaru sighed and let them come in, looking at Gaara sternly, who had his usual expressionless look and had fully expected that reaction.

Shikamaru looked at Naruto and then at Gaara, he had just herd what happened and he believed it despite his usual thinking. Of course Naruto had left out the last part of the story, but it was easy for him to figure out what happened. "You really can control time?" Shikamaru wasn't exactly happy about Gaara holding that type of power, but Gaara was different from before, and he seemed like he couldn't care less about the new ability. But he always seemed like that.

"Cool isn't it!" Naruto said excitedly. "And you want to go back 12 years, but you only have a 5 hour hourglass." Shikamaru wanted to make sure he was hearing this correctly. "That's why we need your help." Naruto told him. "So what exactly do you need me to help with?"

"When I use the hourglass to go back in time, I have to flip it over and rest it in order to go back farther." Gaara said, his usual expressionless face wasn't as intense as it usually was, trying to show Shikamaru that he wasn't going to try anything. Shikamaru finally relaxed, sitting back in his chair and closing his eye, "So you want me to figure out how many times you need to rest the hourglass."

"Yes."

Shikamaru started to think about it, did he really want to help Gaara go back in time. There was no limit to the damage he could do then, he didn't want to be partly responsible for it. But he really couldn't stop him from doing it, and he knew the only reason Gaara was bothering with it was because Naruto asked him. Now he was more worried about Naruto doing the damage then Gaara, he could do more on his own by accident then Gaara could do intentionally. Things could end up much worse then they already were.

"Alright I'll help you….if you let me go with you."

His request was reasonable, who wouldn't want to go and see the past? Naruto looked at Gaara, who had no objection, and he himself didn't really care. "Ok." Naruto said. As soon as they agreed, Shikamaru started thinking about the problem. " 5 hours out of 24 hours in a day….times 365 days in a year…times 12 years….." He started doing the problem in his head, not taking more then a few seconds.

5 hours divided by 24 hours 4.8. Gaara would have to reset the glass 4 times and count off 4 hours if he wanted to go back a day in time.

4.8 resets times 365 days 1752. Gaara would have to reset the glass 1752 times to go back a year.

1752 resets times 12 years 21024.

"You would have to reset the glass….21,024 times to go back 12 years." Shikamaru said, checking over his numbers but he was right. Naruto and Shikamaru looked to Gaara to see if he could do that, Gaara didn't seem at all discouraged about it though. "How long would that take?" Naruto said, holding his head, he didn't want to think about it.

"Sure you want to go through with that?" Shikamaru asked, leaning back in his chair so that the 2 legs in the front came off the ground. Gaara looked at Naruto questioningly "It's up to you." "I still wanna go….." Naruto said with a nod.

Gaara got up, picking up the hourglass and Naruto grabbed on to his arm securely. "I have to be touching you to take you back with me." Gaara said, looking over at Shikamaru who reached out almost hesitantly, half expecting the sand to jump out and block his path. Finally after a few second, he placed his hand on Gaara's shoulder, watching his vision distort and blur.

"What's happening?" He asked worriedly, "That's supposed to happen." Naruto told him, after a few seconds their vision cleared and the could see the hourglass floating in front of Gaara. Spinning wildly until it was nothing but a blur. What had used to be Shikamaru's house was now a rush of falling sand surrounding them on all sides. Gaara's body shifted and Shikamaru jumped making him lose his grip on Gaara's shoulder.

But nothing happened, he was still with Naruto and Gaara despite the fact that an uncountable number of things could have and should have happened. It seemed once they were moving through time, they couldn't be separated.

After a minute or so, the hourglass instantly stopped and the sand that surrounded them disappeared.

They were standing in the area Shikamaru's house used to be….or would be built on eventually. Now it was just a wooded forest. Screams could be herd in the distance, the smell of fire burning through wood and an unknown element hung in the air. This was it, no doubt about it. "Naruto, where did you take us too?" Shikamaru asked, looking up, the night sky was covered by a veil of black smoke. Some of the trees in this area was splattered with blood.

"This is….when nine-tails attacked the village…." Naruto sounded almost as if he was in a daze, as if he couldn't believe he was here. He could feel what was sealed inside of him start to stir, feeling it's own Chakra in strong amounts nearby. This was definitely it. Naruto's daze seemed to wear off as he sprang to life and dashed toward center of the smoke and screams.

Gaara noticed he was moving and went after him, 'Oh man…I hope he doesn't do anything stupid…' Shikamaru thought as he followed the two, struggling to catch up with Naruto who seemed to be moving faster then he had ever seen him go. They rushed through the blur of trees until a wall of fire cut off there path, The screams were louder now mixed with roars and growls, They could feel it's Chakara like a hot wind, it was immensely powerful.

It almost left Naruto and Shikamaru trembling, nothing could protect them from it, if chose to attack them. "We should run, that think will destroy us in a second!" Shikamaru said in a forceful whisper, it was silently decided between the three of them to get away from this place….until they herd a particular set of screams, coming from a pair of children near by. They could only be no more then 2 or 3 years old.

Naruto could see them, two kids, brother and sister, clinching on to a tree base. Trying to avoid the fire and the Hell bent demon on the other side. "We have to save them!" Naruto said, right before running towards them. "Naruto wait! You can't change the past it could-" Naruto either didn't hear him or wasn't listening, Shikamaru and Gaara went after Naruto again, fully aware of the danger they were in.

Naruto grabbed the small boy in one hand and the girl in the other, then looked back to see if Gaara and Shikamaru where following and went in the opposite direction. The fire behind them explained suddenly, incinerating more trees. "Oh shit! It knows we're here!" Shikamaru said frantically, his usually calm demeanor was shattered for the moment but he quickly got it back.

His mind started racing, trying to think of something to through it off before it came for them directly…… "Gaara, Put up a wall to slow the fire, Naruto, we'll need some copies. Just put them anywhere in the way, it should distract the demon long enough for us to escape." Shikamaru knew the Nine-Tails would stop to kill every shadow clone Naruto could mange. By then they could leave these kids someplace safe.

Gaara did as Shikamaru said, creating a large wall of sand that stretched the fire's length, stopping the flames in there place. Naruto used Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, creating an uncountable number of clones that lay in front of the sand wall. As expected, by the time the demon was done, they were safely out of range and in the outskirts of the Leaf village, it was much smaller in the past, mainly because of the demon.

"Let's go, I hope we don't regret what you did Naruto." Shikamaru said. Naruto looked at him questioningly. "What do you mean? I just saved two people." "Two people that were suppose to die, you don't know how this could effect the future. Those two may grow up to destroy the leaf for all we know." Shikamaru said, grabbing on to Gaara's shoulder while Naruto took hold.

They returned to the present, finding themselves at the center of the village, which was a huge problem considering they were with Gaara. Naruto looked around frantically before grabbing Gaara and pushing him in to the first concealed place and empty he could see. It just happened to be somebody's house, which wasn't there before.

"That was a close-" Naruto's voice trailed off when he noticed that when he pushed Gaara, he also pushed Shikamaru, who tripped over something as soon as he entered the open door. That something turned out to be a someone, Rock Lee, who was just leaving when he found himself pined under Shikamaru. "Ow…" Rock Lee rubbed his head, opening his eyes to see who was on top of him and his gaze immediately fell on Gaara.

"What the….Gaa-" His voice was cut off when Shikamaru's weight shifted as he pulled himself up, knocking the air out of Lee's lungs and letting him finally get a look at who was on top of him. "What's going on!" Lee's voice was confused and at a near shout. "Calm down, I'll explain it too you." Shikamaru said, reaching out and helping Lee up, but the started to shake made him stumble back down.

"An earthquake?" Naruto said confusedly, they never had earthquakes here. "Oh man, they're at it again…" Lee said with a deep sigh, grabbing on to the door and pulling himself up. "What do you mean?" Shikamaru asked. "Are you serous! Where you paying attention for the last 10 years? Those twins are blasting again, one of these days they'll blow us all up." Lee said.

The three just looked at him with a confused look, shifting a little to keep they're footing on the shaking ground. Lee started to explain, though he didn't know why they didn't know. "Remari and Kemari, brother and sister remember? They took the souls of all who died in the nine-tails battle and they're convinced they could find even more power under the village. So they keep digging."

"Why didn't anyone stop them?" Shikamaru asked. "No way, you guys really have forgotten everything. No one can catch them, I saw them once, when some once gets close, they become…ghost like, nothing can touch them." Lee said, which made it finally sink in, those were the twins that Naruto had saved. Lee looked around frantically as the shaking got worse, the ground started to crack in to fine lines "The blast never lasted this long…. I think they really did it this time!" Lee ran past Naruto, stumbling outside. In some places the ground had been tore open leaving gaping holes. In other parts sections of the ground shot up and down like pistons. And the ground under them was slowly about to break apart, the leaf was doomed and had 20 seconds left at the most.

"See what happens when you mess with the past! Go back and stop this!" Shikamaru shouted, he found it apparently clear that he wasn't going to make it over to them in time to go with them. "Come on then!" Naruto called out, the ground under one side of the house shattered and was slowly pulling the whole structure in. "Go with out me! I'll be fine once you stop this, you don't have much time left."

Naruto nodded and Gaara started using the hourglass.

Shikamaru looked around, feeling the house started to shift backwards, throwing him in to a near by wall. He landed next to Rock Lee, who had fallen there a few seconds ago. They both looked at each other, "I can't believe I'm going to die like this!" Lee said disappointedly "If Gai-sensei could see me now."

"Don't worry about it." Shikamaru said with a small smirk, now the wall had become the floor. "What are you talking about?" Lee asked, holding on though he knew it was in vein. "Hn….nothing."

There was a small problem now, they couldn't go all the way back because "I'm running out of Chakra." Gaara announced, going back farther in time was taking it down much faster then he had expected. "How much do you have left?" Naruto asked. "If I go all the way back, I won't have enough left to take us all the way back. If I stop here, I will." Gaara was obviously looking to Naruto for the choice. "Alright stop here." Naruto sighed, it was only getting worse.

They ended up about 10 years in the past, only 2 years after the nine-tails was sealed. This was around the time Rock Lee said it started, maybe they could stop it now. They once again found themselves in village, this time they were in the outskirts, luckily the village hadn't developed too near the old battle sight. If the kids had absorbed the souls from the battle, they would most likely get them from the battle field.

Gaara and Naruto ran towards it, moving from the village in to the surrounding forest. "Hey Gaara, you think we can still do something?" Naruto asked, a small amount of worry to his voice, Gaara gave him a look that just barely said I don't know. Which only pushed Naruto to move more anxiously, he couldn't stand the thought that he was responsible for the destruction of the Leaf.

They came on to the battle ground quickly, they could recognize it because some of it was still burnt. The ground was cleared out and hardened. Two children where here, digging through the rubble, they were the same ones that Naruto had saved before. The boy picked up one particular rock, a black stone with the same seal Naruto had on his stomach. It was stone used to concentrate Chakra, the one who sealed the nine-tails used this stone to help him do it.

He held it up and waved it around in the sun light, as soon as he waved it past another stone on the ground. Both stones began to shine. The one on the ground stopped shining and became invisible among the endless pile of similar rocks. The concentration stone in the boy's hand still contained a strong amount of Chakra from the nine-tails, which had passed through the stone when being sealed, and from the one whole sealed the nine-tails, who had poured every last ounce of his Chakra in to it.

The stone began to pull Chakra from the air, which probably why Rock Lee said it had come from souls. It started to filter in to the boy. Naruto dived outward, snatching the stone from him and landing on the ground, finding himself surprisingly disoriented after touching it. It stopped pulling Chakra from the air and became as if it was a regular stone.

'This is what was caused all of that?' Naruto thought to himself, looking over the stone. Gaara stood over him, helping him up, "I guess this I what gave them their power…" Naruto said, almost only low enough for himself to hear. He looked up at Gaara and smiled. "Let's go, All of this is making me hungry!"

"Are you alright Gaara" Naruto asked as Gaara intentionally fell to his knees, panting heavily. This wasn't something a normal person with normal Chakra could do, this took large amounts to pull someone through time. "Just tired." He said, getting to his feet again, tired was an understatement.

He still managed to push himself though, very grateful when Naruto led him to Shikamaru's house before they attempted to go to Naruto's house unnoticed. Rock Lee opened the door, extremely surprised to see Gaara on the other end. He didn't know whether he was more surprised to see Gaara, or Naruto with him.

"Who is it?" Shikamaru called out from someplace in the house. "It's Naruto ….and Gaara."

When he said that, Shikamaru jumped up from whatever he was doing and rushed to the door.

"Hmm…..You went back in time again didn't you?" He asked, looking at a tired Gaara and Naruto who was holding a black stone. They had to come back sometime after they told Shikamaru, and it seemed everything was back to the way it was.

Shikamaru let the two in, reassuring Lee that it was alright. Letting Naruto explain to Lee what he had explained to him. Then explaining what happened the last 2 times they went back in time.

After a few minutes, Naruto left with Gaara, who really needed some rest.

Since Gaara had no more Chakra, they had to rely on other methods to get him across the village. They had to ask the only other person who knew Gaara was in the village, Kakashi.

Which also meant they had to explain to him everything that happened, and also to Iruka who was with him. Not a usually together, either it was a coincidence or something they changed made them closer.


	4. Chapter 4: Not Alone

Chapter 4: Not Alone

"I can't believe all of that happened! And you went back in time with them?" Rock Lee was laying next to him on the roof, looking up at the clouds. It was warm, the wind was blowing a soft, cool breeze, and the sky was blue and full of clouds. It something never noticed unless you took time to do so.

"Yeah." Shikamaru said carelessly, closing his eyes. "Take me with you next time." Lee asked, in an almost begging voice. "Hn…I don't think there is going to be a next time." Shikamaru told him, he could practically feel his face drop. "No way! You can't just waste something like that." Lee said strongly.

"It's dangerous to go back in to the past, changing the smallest thing could set off a horrible chain reaction." Shikamaru said, "But it could also change the world for the better! doing one thing could save a lot of people." Lee replied, sitting up and looked down at Shikamaru who now was looking up at him. Shikamaru never really thought of it in this perspective.

"You'd never be able to tell, it could be a complete disaster." Shikamaru said. Lee shook his head, "No you can't tell, it could be the opposite." Lee shot back, he found it much easier to look at the potential good things while Shikamaru always analyzed the bad. "You couldn't predict something like that so it would be better just to leave it alone." Shikamaru told him.

"You could in some instances." Rock Lee was practically on top of him now. "Really? Go ahead then." Shikamaru laid his head back down and waited for Lee's answer, he thought about it for a second and decided to use himself as an example.

"Alright, what if we go back in time and stop me from seeing the Janken match between Kakashi-sensei and Gai-sensei. Gai-sensei would have never agreed to train me and I would have never gotten where I am today." Lee said with a sense of victory. "Uh-uh, you have to go deeper then that, the smallest things could change someone's life." Shikamaru said, a technicality.

Lee started to think harder, "Ok then, I remember I was walking down the street with no place to go in particular. A leaf fell on my head….and and stopped to take it off and see where it came from. It was a young tree that I remember was planted….5 years before. When I stopped I herd a voice, it was really low and I wouldn't have herd it over my own footsteps. I looked to see where it was coming from and I saw Neji. I went to talk to him and I saw Kakashi-sensei and Gai-sensei. If someone hadn't planted that tree in that particular spot, then I wouldn't be here." If Lee hadn't proven his point before, he did now.

"Hmm….." Shikamaru looked up at Lee, who had moved over Shikamaru to prove his point before now was just laying there. His face only a few inches from Shikamaru, "And if you need more convening, I could theorize how something small in the past got me and you together." Lee kissed him, pressing one hand against Shikamaru's chest. "Heh, someone's happy to see me." Shikamaru said, feeling an erection pressing through Lee's body suit and rubbing against his chest.

"I guess so." Lee laughed a little before burying his face into Shikamaru's neck, still holding himself up with one hand while the other roamed around the other boy's body. "Hyper's more like it, try putting that energy to good use." Shikamaru said teasingly, keeping his hands behind his head and his eyes closed. Lee gave him a small nod, letting his body press against Shikamaru's completely, and going in for another kiss on the willing body.

Lee peeled away Shikamaru's shirt, kissing down the warm torso underneath, gently sucking and licking his nipples. Shikamaru reached down and started working on his pants, pulling them off while Lee lifted himself off of him to take off the now very restricting body suit. Shikamaru looked up, admiring Lee for a moment. Lee naked was one thing, but it was even better from this angle.

Lee pressed his body to Shikamaru's again, pulling himself into another kiss and grabbing hold of the other boy's body, running his hands down the sides until he had his waist. Lee looked up at Shikamaru with a small smile before taking the erection into his mouth and sucking it intensely. "Ahh! Lee-" He instantly to a reaction from Shikamaru, forcing the boy to squirm and moan.

Each time Shikamaru had gotten a little used to the strong feeling, Lee pulled the cock in deeper. A bandaged hand reached up and pressed at Shikamaru torso, holding him down when he arched up. And preventing him from thrusting.

Lee pulled away from the cock, getting a disappointed moan from Shikamaru. Lee only smiled his trademark smile before climbing up and sitting on his chest, pushing his cock in to Shikamaru's mouth.

Shikamaru ran his tongue over the warm flesh slowly, swirling around the head. Lee found himself leaning over Shikamaru's head with his hand on the ground on both sides moaning softly. He was reluctant to pull his length from the mouth, moving down between Shikamaru' leg and pressing his cock against Shikamaru's entrance.

Lee let one hand come to rest on Shikamaru's chest, the other wrapping around the hard cock pressing against him as he pushed in. Starting off fast and hard in his own rate while running his hand along Shikamaru's erection at it's own pace. Shikamaru reached forward, sitting up so that to stretch farther. He grabbed on to Lee's waist, holding there for a moment and enjoying the movement. Then he pulled the thrusting hips in deeper.

His senses were completely over loaded, he couldn't stop a moan from tearing from his throat. The feeling of pleasure that covered Shikamaru's whole body was slightly interrupted by his lungs burning. He had to tell himself to breath.

Lee looked down on Shikamaru and he loved the look his face, it was almost enough to make him stop and savor the moment. But more so enough for him to do the opposite, he lifted his both hand up to Shikamaru's shoulders. Pressing his chest against the boy below him and pulling him down as he thrust upward.

Shikamaru let his head fall back, clinching his eyes tightly as Lee's moving cock and the rubbing against his own pressed between them sent a spray of cum upward on to both of their torsos. Shikamaru fell back on the padded surface, too out of breath to moan. His body tensed and clinched when he felt another thrust from Lee push another spurt of cum out of his sensitive cock.

Lee found himself unable to keep going, Shikamaru's body tightened around forcing him to unload his seed inside of boy. Lee fell on to Shikamaru, effectively knocking what little air he had in his lungs. Not that it mattered, it wasn't enough for a good breath and Shikamaru found that he could breath easier now that Lee was close to him and wasn't fucking him.

He had to admit, he did like Lee better when he was trying to prove something. Even better when he was angry, which gave him ideas.

"Is there a Jutsu you used?" Iruka asked, he and Kakashi were at Naruto's house after helping Gaara, who had no Chakra left to do it himself with out being seen. They helped him mainly out of curiosity of, now they were basically seeing what his intentions were. From the explanation Gaara had given of how the power worked, he could have just came here so that he could go back in time and destroy the Leaf from it's very roots.

"No, I'm not sure how it works, I just know that when I control the sand in the glass, time moves along with it." Gaara was trying to be as corporative as he could, to show them that he wasn't a threat. But was annoyed by all of this, conversation wasn't his strong point and he didn't try to change that or hide it. He didn't talk to someone unless he needed to and even then only said what he had to.

In Naruto's case, unless he liked them.

"Let's go." Kakashi said, folding his arms and leaning against the wall and his one reviled eye closed. Iruka looked at him and shrugged, It was clear that Gaara didn't want to do any damage. Weather he wanted to do any or not, he could potentially do a lot. It was a sure thing that he would go back in time again, something was bound to be wrong with this reality that they wanted to change.

"Since Orochimaru did impersonate Kazekage and order the attack, it's clear that it's he is the one that caused this. Gaara was only following orders."

He couldn't stop them, but he could go with them, make sure they don't do anything stupid. Well, make sure Naruto didn't do anything stupid, he screwed up the future once.

"Are you sure it was a good idea to leave them alone?" Iruka asked, rubbing his head. "They wouldn't do anything unless they see anything different from what they're used to." Kakashi looked down at his book as he sat down at his usual spot near Iruka's home. Under a large tree, the largest one around. This whole area was surrounded in a small forest, which was completely different from what it used to be.

When the Nine-tails came after Naruto, Gaara, and Shikamaru in the past, they took it on a course that it didn't take before. Because it took a different path, it saved some landscape in that area, where Iruka's house was now. The nine-tails took a different path then before, meaning different people died, different people stayed alive, a completely different outcome.

"What will happen then?" Iruka sat next to him, looking up through the leaves and the rays of sun light that filtered through. "Anything could happen, we make sure it's not too bad." Kakashi carelessly flipped through the pages, feeling Iruka's head lay on his shoulder. He looked down at the man, finding himself being drawn more and more from his book until he was more content just to watch him.

Iruka smiled, leaning up and pulling down the mask around his face and giving a him a soft kiss on the lips. Kakashi wrapped his arm around Iruka's shoulder and pulled him in deeper in to the kiss, tossing the book someplace behind him. Iruka reached up and wrapped his arms around Kakashi's neck, making the awkward position less so.

Iruka pulled back and moved so that he was on he knees, almost sitting on Kakashi's lap with both arms wrapped around his neck again. Another soft kiss followed before Iruka lifted up the head band covering Kakashi's other eye. He always got a strange feeling looking in to the two contrasting eyes, It was almost hypnotic, as if one of them saw him and the other saw in to him.

Kakashi brought him out of his daze by abruptly pinning him down to the ground, running his hands down his back until they got to the rim of his pants and abruptly pulled them down. Kakashi was very direct, lifting himself up to unbutton his own pants and let his own cock free.

Kakashi ignored his own arousal for the moment and wrapped one hand around Iruka's length and rubbed the small crease between the head and the base. Iruka immediately started to squirm, which was quickly halted by Kakashi pressing his body against Iruka's.

The pleasure was added by small licks and sucking on his jaw line by Kakashi, as well as his cock pressing at his entrance. It was slow, and pleasurable, torture that pull anxious moans and a heavy breath for Iruka. All of this was making Kakashi painfully erect, pre-cum from his cock now coated the small ring of muscles of Iruka's ass.

Kakashi had enough will for it, Iruka on the other hand didn't, which is what Kakashi was waiting for.

He started rubbing the head of the cock with his thumb slowly and just barley pushed at his entrance with his erection to tease him. "Please…." Iruka moaned softly, clinching the soft grass under him.

Kakashi continued, softly nibbling on his ear. "Hmm?"

Iruka groaned, shifting his head a little and suddenly wishing he had taken off his shirt, all of this was really making him hot. "Please…I can't take this….I-" Iruka's voice trailed off when another mock thrust from Kakashi made him moan, he would have arched up it Kakashi wasn't on top of him. "Please what?" Iruka could tell Kakashi was enjoying this, and he really was. Hearing Iruka moaning and begging for him, what wasn't there to enjoy?

"I need you…please-" Iruka moaned, attempting to thrust upward in to Kakashi's hand, but failed miserably because Kakashi was holding him down. "You need me to?" It was clear Kakashi would keep going with this until he said it, there was no way he would give in before Iruka did. "I need you inside of me, I can't take it, stop teasing and go already!" Iruka nearly shouted, getting smirk from Kakashi.

He finally pushed in, his wet cock moving easily into the clinched entrance. Iruka sighed in some what relief but more so because of the immense tension built by the teasing. Kakashi grabbed Iruka's hands, wrapping both of them around his cock, Iruka began to move to run his hands along the arousal, wrapping his legs around Kakashi and thrusting in to his hand while he drove his body back on to Kakashi.

It didn't more then a few strokes before a wave of pleasure coursed through his whole body. Iruka let of his erection, clinching the ground below again. "Ka-kashi!" Iruka moaned loudly, cum spurting out of his cock and on to Kakashi's stomach.

Kakashi stopped, grabbing on to Iruka's waist. The half lidded expression with his mouth slightly open, his chest rapidly rising and fall, the feeling of his hart racing in his chest, looking at Iruka right now was enough to make him follow after. His cock twitched in the tight ass, filling Iruka with cum.

The heavy breaths faded quickly. Iruka looked at Kakashi laying on top of him with his face buried to in to Iruka's neck. He found him self perfectly content just to lay there, he sure as hell didn't want to move. A small smile appeared on his face as he herd Kakashi's breathing slow and his body drift off to sleep. He wrapped his arms around Kakashi's waist and closed his eyes, letting his mind wander.

Gaara lay lazily on the bed with Naruto almost clinging to him, resting on Gaara's chest with his hands behind his head. He found himself unwilling to move, this position was surprisingly comfortable, he was happy just to lay here.

"Something is different about this place…." Naruto said, looking up at the ceiling, Gaara was silent and Naruto really didn't expect an response from him. "I don't know what it is be something feels….different." He wasn't sure if it was a good or bad difference, he'd find out sooner or later. He couldn't explain it by the felt this strange feeling, it was more physical then mental. It was like being surrounded by water, only less intense.

If anything it was like being surrounded by static electricity, it was gently pushing on him from all sides, But it was so light that he would hardly notice it. It was almost enough to worry him, almost.

"Gaara, I been meaning to ask you. Don't you want to see anything from your past?" Naruto asked.

'No." Gaara said plainly, almost coldly. "Well….Don't you want to change anything?" Naruto asked. Gaara couldn't think of enough reasons, he didn't dwell on the past, he never looked back. Now he was forced to. "Maybe…." he didn't care right now, he had Naruto and that was literally all that mattered.

Not who he was, what he did or how he acted in the past. But now that he thought about the past, he started to worry about the present. Again his mind wondered back to when Yashamaru tried to kill him, her words still lingered like an open wound that just wouldn't heal. Maybe it never would.

"_It was an order, I was ordered to assassinate you by your Kazekage-sama…"_

"_Father…Why….would he want me dead…?"_

"_You were born to be possessed by the sand Shukaku, Until today, you have been watched over as an experimental subject. However, you are yet unable to control the powers of the living spirit Shukaku… Before long your existence will become too dangerous to the village itself. We simply couldn't let that happen."_

"…_.Then you had no choice… It was because of my father…"_

"_No, you're mistaken. Yes, I did receive Kazekage-sama's order…But I would've declined it if I wanted to. Lord Gaara…deep down inside…I must've always resented you. For coming into this world, stealing life away from my beloved sister. I trued my best to love you by thinking of you as her memento, but I couldn't. She never wished to give birth to you…she was sacrificed for the village and therefore died while cursing at it. _

_Perhaps…from that moment on, I've been carrying never-healing emotional scars…. Your mother gave you your name. This child's name is 'Gaara'. 'A demon that loves only himself.'. Love only yourself…and fight only for your sake… She wished and believed that your existence is forever as long as you live so…_

_But she didn't give you the name out of concern or love for you…. The name was given to you in the hope of your eternal existence…to let her grudge be carried down…and be known to the world… _

_You were never loved."_

Those words where the reason he wouldn't, he couldn't love. It's why he lived only too- "Gaara? Are you alright?" Naruto asked, looking up at him. His blue eyes full of concern.

_I'm alone. I won't tryst anyone any more…I won't love…I'm on my own… Haha…that's right I'm all alone._

He remembered when he said that, all of it was rushing back. Gaara didn't answer, he just looked up at the ceiling. Naruto could see the silent furry growing on Gaara's face and his hands clinch, it was starting to make worry, and a little frightened.

Any number of things could be running through Gaara's mind, his personality was unstable because of the sand that possessed him. Naruto was slowly making him more stable, but maybe he wasn't doing so fast enough.

That mentality was starting to make itself known, it was conflicting with what he was now. Worst of all it was starting to win.

"Gaara!"

Gaara's eyes focused on to Naruto, he had zoned out and didn't even know it. Naruto was really worried now, he was on Gaara's chest, holding him by the collar of his shirt. Only an inch at the most for his face. "What's wrong?" Naruto couldn't stand seeing him like this anymore.

It started to bring up an entirely different set of memories

"_Physical and emotional scars are a bit different…Unlike physical ones, there's no ointment available for emotional ones and the pain may never go away. There is only one thing that can stop such heartache. However, as inconvenient as it may seem, This cure can only be given by someone other than yourself. "_

"_What is it?"_

"_It's love."_

"_H, How can I receive that?"_

"_Love is…..care and devotion you feel for the precious ones around you._

Gaara's expression softened and he looked up at Naruto with confusion and sadness in his eyes. "I thought I lost you there for a minute." Naruto rubbed his head, smiling with a sigh of relief. All of this conflicting thoughts, feelings, ideas, hate and love, it was driving him crazy. But all of that seemed to fade away when Naruto kissed him, this was the reason he existed now, for him.

_I knew it… It doesn't go well at all…How come…only I am such a monster?_

_Why do they always look at me with those eyes._

'Hn…I'm not the only one…I'm not alone anymore.'


	5. Chapter 5: We are the sands of time

Chapter 5: We are the sands of time

All of Konoha was awaken by a loud howl and a sudden explosion that sent a shockwave outward with enough force to cover the city. Homes and shops close to the source ended up with shattered windows and broken doors, it wasn't nearly that bad for everyone else.

A series of howls followed, coming from different parts of the city, but it seemed to come from all sides.

"What the hell was that!" Naruto shouted, his eyes shooting and his body springing up off of Gaara in surprise. Both of them looked out the window and could see a thick billow of smoke rising nearby, slowly but surely the sound of people followed, just about all of them at once.

Naruto pulled himself out of bed and got dressed as fast as he could, which was much fast then Gaara.

Being much faster, Naruto practically dragged him outside, not caring if anyone saw Gaara because they both immediately knew the situation was too bad for that. "What's….going on?" Naruto looked around in awe as more and more explosions erupted around the city. Most of them small though.

"Someone is attacking this village, and there must be a lot of them." Gaara gold tell that much from what he was hearing.

"Come on! We have to do something!" Naruto charged forward in the direction of the nearest fire with Gaara only a few steps behind. Before they could move a few feet, a store in front of them exploded, the force knocking both of them off their feet.

Through the blazing remains an animal jumped, a small, orange fox with 3 tails and glowing red eyes. "A demon?" Gaara studied the strange creature with the distinct feeling that it looked familiar in some way, but he had little time to think about it because it growled audibly as a warning right before it jumped at them. Gaara and Naruto separated, each moving in a different direction to get out of the way before it could pounce on one of them.

With an agile turn on it's heels it sprang at Naruto, picking him out to be the weaker of the two, Naruto pulled his arm back sending a punch to the side of it's face and knocking it away. The fox landed on it's feet and rushed back him with a quick speed being no more then two steps off of the boy. But it could only take one before a wall of sand rose from the ground and smashed in it's chin, throwing the fox to the ground.

The demon rolled on to it's feet quickly, again coming at Naruto who was ready with a Kunai. He tossed the knife at the fox, who easily stepped to the side to evade and kept going. "It's fast." Naruto jumped to the left as the fox lunged at him, again successfully avoiding it.

"Sand Coffin!" It didn't get a chance to attack a third time, as soon as it landed a mass of sand rose out of the ground, swallowing the demon's whole body .

They could hear it inside trying to claw it's way out, persistent wasn't a good enough word for it. "Oh man…" Naruto took a step back, pressing his back to Gaara's as more of the foxes came from inconspicuous places around them like surrounding buildings and alleyways. In the end 10 surrounded had them from every direction. They were about to attack, when an 11th fox came flying off a roof, landing hard on it's back in front of Naruto and Gaara. It's surprising fall was followed by a Shuriken aimed at it's head. Unfortunately the fox scurried out of the way and it missed.

Lee jumped down from the same roof followed by Shikamaru, neither of them had apparently saw that Naruto and Gaara were _completely_ surrounded by the demons mainly because a large shadow cast by a nearby building had blocking the view of about 5 of them. But they quickly found out their odds. "Lee? Shikamaru? What are you too doing here?" Naruto asked, looking around casually.

Lee gave a quick, confident smirk before he raise his hands in a fighting stance. "I would ask the same thing to you." Nothing else could be said between the 4, any voices after that were drowned out by the foxes starting growling, some barking and others howling. All 6 of the demons on the left side sprang forward, while the other 5 on the right didn't move. Shikamaru had trapped them with Shadow mimic no jutsu, and all they could do was growl angrily.

The controlled Foxes pounced at the unsuspecting others by Shikamaru's control, trapping 10 of them in a furry of bites and scratches. The last fox, unpaired, charged directly at Lee, who was expectant of the attack and sent a kick at it's jaw as it approached. The fox steeped back, running under Lee's leg before he could lower it and jumping up his chest. Lee fell back, hitting the ground and kicking the three tailed fox off before it could do anymore then sink it's claws in.

"We can't fight against this many of them, we need to get out of here. Now!" Lee said, seeing the obvious miss match.

"Maybe if we split them up, we can fight them one by one." Shikamaru suggested though his voice was strained, he could feel Chakra building in the foxes he controlled, they were about to break the Jutsu. "No...they're stronger then I thought."

"Why are we still standing here then! Lets go!" Naruto said, waving them forward. "We have to get to that fire."

"You go, I'll catch up. " Shikamaru let the other's pass over him, obviously he was planning to hold the jutsu long enough for them to get away. Lee of course was going to stay with him, at lest until he could finish off the _eleventh_ fox.

"We'll be at the big house down the street." Naruto told him, this was just a rendezvous point so they could try and figure out what was happening, and why these demons looked so familiar...

Lee looked back at Naruto and Gaara, making sure they were gone, then turned back to the fox that still tried to attack him. It jumped at him again going directly for his face with it's mouth, Lee crouched under it and sent a sharp elbow to it's side when the agile fox landed. The demon took the blow an countered with a swipe of it's claws, Lee lift his arm, blocking his face and pushing it's paw away. The fox lunged at his face again but Lee used his already lifted arm to hold off it's head by pushing it under it's chin. The demon barked and griped at him, giving up on biting and instead slashing him across his chest with it's claws.

Lee winched and lifted his knee in too the fox's stomach, making it fall back on to the ground. Taking the opportunity he pulled a Kunai from the holder on his leg, and threw the knife at the demon's head. The fox lifted it's head slightly, catching the knife in-between it's teeth and with one fling of it's head sent it flying back at Lee. He barely had time to move, though the knife cut him across his cheek and took a few strands of hair off. "Whoa!" That caught him off guard, this thing was fast, this whole fight was moving at a quick pace, he didn't expected his reflexes to be tested this much. While Lee regained his footing the fox an opportunity to ram his legs and knock him to the ground.

The orange demon turned around and dived at him, but as soon as it landed on his chest and was about to bite it was met with a Kunai from Lee, driven into it's head directly under into the soft skin under it's chin.

Lee pushed the dead demon off of him and joined Shikamaru, just as the fox broke his Jutsu. "Got a plan for this one?" Lee asked nervously.

"Just follow me, I hope Naruto and Gaara are ready."

"Damnit!" Naruto sighed, passing his favorite Raman shop. The actual building was still intact, only everything inside was broken or on fire.

Gaara stopped.

"What is it?" Naruto in turn paused and turned back, wondering what the possible reason Gaara could have for stopping so close to their destination, A large mansion that was no more then a block ahead of them, one of the only structures still in tact. It was picked because it was one not to far away from the large fire that drew Naruto outside in the first place.

Gaara thought for a second...then walked in to the Raman stand. He disappeared into a haze of black smoke, returning with three containers in hand.

The one square containers was labeled 'chill powder', the long cylinder was labeled 'curry powder' and the last 'Black pepper.' Naruto scratched his head, this is what they stopped for?. "What do you need those for?"

Shikamaru's strategically erratic pattern of movement along the roof tops didn't detour the demons one bit. Though they couldn't jump that high, they were faster and followed the two like blood hounds... Until they reached one particular spot and stopped all together, strangely. "Hey look." Lee looking back at the foxes, all of them were enveloped in a cloud of lose dust they had kicked up themselves.

They were sneezing and their eyes were watering, not one of them were still paying attention to their former targets. "It smell like…Chill powder?" Shikamaru looked at the demons with a spark of realization, turning toward the meeting point and seeing nothing but a small piece of orange where Naruto was _almost_ concealed under a pile of rock and debris on the roof. With an open chance, the two rushed toward the building, jumping in to a shattered window directly under Naruto and Gaara.

Crouched down out of view, Lee and Shikamaru looked toward the ceiling. "Can you hear me?" Shikamaru asked as quietly as he could while trying to be heard.

A small hole opened up.

"Yeah, now what are we going to do about those foxes out there?" Naruto asked.

"There's no way we could fight them head on, Lee is the only person fast enough to stand a chance against an opponent like. These aren't ordinarily demons, they're smart and I'm sure they've studied all of us by now. So the only way we can attack is to stay hidden and use long range. This seems like a good vantage point and I see you've already taken out their sense of smell so that should make it easier for us ...Hmm." Shikamaru paused, still working out what he was thinking. "But if me or Lee attempts to scout them out from a position like this they'll most definitely see us. So you two will have to be our eyes." Shikamaru told them. With a Kunai Lee was cutting a square hole in the wall in-between him and Shikamaru.

"Can't I just use Kage Bunshin and-"

"No, I've seen how these demons work. If you do that then they'll just follow your Chakra. Just scout."

It was a simple but effective plan to dispose of the demons, Naruto would tell Lee and Shikamaru where to attack. Then they would attack through the hole, then put it back in place before anyone of the foxes could see where the attack had come from. Gaara would also be attacking with the sand from where he was so that would help.

"You got one heading this way, about 10 feet off at 12 o'clock." Naruto called down. Sand shot up from the ground under the fox he was indicating, knocking it to the ground, followed by a Kunai to the head. Shikamaru quickly pulled the square back in place, just as the other foxes scrambled to the downed one. "All of them are in the same place, take your pick."

A considerably larger amount of sand rushed out of the ground under the 9 remaining foxes. Three Kunais came now, only hitting two of the foxes though striking them directly in the head. The remaining 7 started to become on guard, prowling around carefully with only the knowledge that the attacks were coming from somewhere nearby.

"I think one of them is starting to figure it out. About 9 feet and closing in at 10 o'clock."

Lee pulled open the hole while Shikamaru threw the knife at the indicated demon, which some how saw the attack coming in and caught the blade in-between it's teeth. With one hard bite the orange fox snapped it in-half.

Before the fox could make a sound to alert the others to what it had seen, it's body was knocked into the air by uprising sand.

"Oh man! That last one saw it coming." Naruto said hastily, in a rush Lee opened the hole and Shikamaru retook the shot, sending a knife through it's throat while it was still entangled in the rising sand. The others took notice to what was happening and finally became suspicious of the building. "Now all of them are coming this way, you have to stop them Gaara."

This time a wall of sand burst through the ground between them and the structure, but the foxes jumped back and avoided it, along with the next three Kunais that followed. The foxes began sniping and growling, running toward the building now. "They're coming!" Naruto said nervously.

"Alright, you two stay where you are." Shikamaru told them, opening the hole again and looking out. All but one fox were coved in the shadow of the building, meaning they were out of Naruto's view.

Shikamaru pulled out a Kunai and a shuriken, 'This should do it.'... He tossed the Shuriken at the Fox, the Kunai right after. The fox easily stepped back and avoided the knife, moving to the left to avoid the Shuriken. The demon was now under the shade of another house, it's shadow just inches away from the fox in front of it, those inches were filled by the shadow cast by the Kunai and Shuriken he'd just thrown. "Shadow mimic no jutsu!"

In only a second he had caught 6 foxes in the Jutsu, giving Lee an open opportunity for an attack. With his location already known, Lee stood up with three knives in-between his fingers, Striking the three closest foxes directly between the eyes with one slight flick of his wrist.

Shikamaru could feel the Chakra in the remaining three building from where he was...

"That's it, I'm out." Lee said disappointedly to Shikamaru, things just kept getting worse and worse.

The Chakra that had been built by the demons didn't go to a jutsu, the foxes didn't know any, instead they unleashed it into a an explosion. Very powerful but with no aim or direction since there was little way to control that kind of attack, one of the three erupted upon the house next to them, the other two someplace behind but nearby. Either way it broke Shikamaru's Jutsu, also knocking Lee to the ground and shattering any remaining windows in the house.

In a blur of orange fur and a display of power, all thee of the foxes jumped up and burst through the wall Shikamaru was leaning against, just narrowly missing the boy himself. Shikamaru sent a knife upward, managing to catch a fox above him under it's mouth then pulled it out. The dead demon fell on top of him, shielding him from the second one that tried to pounce on him. Pushing both away, Shikamaru threw the blood sheathed Kunai at the living demon, hitting it though the eye. Noticing that they weren't good at close range, Lee easily kick the remaining one in it's side and knocked it out of the hole it had just created..

The Fox landed on it's feet just as Shikamaru pulled the remaining knife from one of the dead emesis. The fox howled loudly but only for a few seconds before sand swirled around it and enclosed it in a sand coffin. But this one was at an angle and had the sheer power where it could jump up and break through Gaara's attack, and as soon as it did it was met with Shikamaru's Kunai.

"That howl...It just told the others where it was." Shikamaru sighed.

Gaara immediately noticed something, he could feel the sun, which he shouldn't have been able too because he was concealed in debris. He turned around and came face to face with a fox that had it's mouth open about to strike. But instead he was splattered in blood, his eyes shot open after his body flinched, just in time to see the fox knocked away by a knife now embedded in it's head

As soon as the body cleared from his vision, he could see Kakashi standing behind him. "You…..Saved me.." Gaara wiped the blood away with his arm, still unable to believe what had just happened.

"I couldn't just let you die, Naruto would pout." Kakashi smirked behind the mask in his usual laid back fashion.

Naruto pulled himself from his formerly hidden spot, looking over Gaara to make sure he was alright. "What's going on?"

Iruka jumped from a nearby roof top, his arm bleeding slightly but it the injury wasn't new. "I'm glad to see you two are alright." He said, visibly and audibly relived. "With everything that's happening..."

Shikamaru and Lee emerged the floor below relatively unhurt, a little surprised to see the two men on this particular roof. "All of these are demons, confirmed to be off springs of the Nine-tails that attacked Konoha 12 years ago. You can see the resemblance not only physically but in strength and Chakra levels." Iruka explained.

"How many are there?" Shikamaru asked.

" 100, maybe more."

"100! But that can't be possible!" Naruto shouted in disbelief.

"Well it is and all of them decided to attack at the same time. They most likely came from different parts of the forest around Konoha. I'm sure they all are from different packs too." Iruka explained

A powerful explosion erupted under them, incinerating the building almost instantly and sending a shockwave outward.

"It's amazing you can do this." Lee looked around excitedly, at the last second he had been lifted up in the air to a safe range by a mass of sand.

Gaara answered in his usual discarding manner "I always could use sand to carry me." Gaara told him, floating nearby with Naruto in his lap.

"Not bad." Kakashi complemented, looking down at the demon that had caused the explosion.

From up there they could see all of Konoha, it didn't look too good. "They came too fast, attacking an already weakened village. And with no Hokage.." Iruka sighed, at lest half the city was in flames from the explosions, and the fires were spreading. So not only did they have to deal with the demons, but also the flames. He could barely breath where he was because of all the smoke rising.

"So what's going to happen?" Naruto asked.

"10 to 1, The village isn't going to make it through this."

Iruka was right, there was a good chance this would be the end of Konoha.

And Naruto wouldn't let that happen. "Gaara." He looked up at the boy, and Gaara immediately knew what he was thinking.

"Normally I would object to this, but…" Kakashi folded his arms looking around him, this was the only way.

"How far back are you planning to go?" Shikamaru asked.

"I'm not sure…" Gaara was waiting for the specifics, which he never handled.

"All the way back to the beginning." Naruto said, he wasn't exactly sure of himself, but he had to do something.

"Aren't you missing something." Kakashi pointed out. Gaara looked down at himself... he was missing the hourglass!

Naruto's place wasn't too far away, he could probably make it there without any problem.


	6. Chapter 6: We are the sands of time part...

Chapter 6: We are the sands of time part 2

I'm not going to lie, this next part is just a little bit AU. Not much though, more like one detail. I made the Nine-Tails smaller then it was before for story proposes. I hope you don't mind to much

"That was amazing…" Iruka looked around at his new surroundings after Gaara had brought all of them back in time. It was exactly how he remembered it happening 12 years ago only he was never this close to the action. Where Naruto's house stood in the future, a forest in flames lay now.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Lee asked.

"Stop the fox from mating, then there's no demons." Iruka told him, an easier task said then done.

Gaara was the first person to point that out. "How can we do that? It's not like we can follow the Nine-tails around."

It would be easy to fine but there was no way they could stay close enough to it to follow. Even if they could, how could they stop it from mating? If they confronted it directly it would most defiantly kill them. "Simple, We take out every other fox around." Kakashi told them.

Naruto shook his head. "No way! We can't possibly track down every fox around Konoha."

"It that or take on the Nine-tail." Iruka said, making Naruto settle down with his point made.

"Then we're splitting up, isn't that dangerous?" Lee asked, he was mainly unsure if he would be able to find them again in these surroundings.

Iruka nodded. "There's no alterative in a situation like this. But to be safe we should meet back here in 20 minutes"

It may have been faster but it was much too dangerous for everyone to go off by themselves. So they broke off in teams of 2 and headed in different directions.

"Shikamaru, what are the chances of us running in to the Nine-tails." Lee asked, wearily scanning the area for anything living.

"About 16 percent." Shikamaru told him confidently.

"Oh…I guess we're pretty safe then." Lee was clearly nervous, messing around with something this powerful when it was in heat. It would only make it more persistent if it managed to spot them.

"Scared?" Shikamaru asked,

Lee sighed, navigating his way through the thick forest tree tops. "I'm not scared for myself, I just scared to fail. That could mean the end of a lot of innocent people.".

He wasn't much for tracking but he could recognize enough for this mission. He could see a pair of footprints in the mud below, they looked like something that might be a fox but he couldn't be sure. "I think I found something." Lee said, dropping to the ground next to the prints.

Shikamaru dropped down next to him, looking over them and was easily able to tell what made them. "Yes these are a fox's tracks, and they were made recently." Shikamaru said, but he quickly shook his head with a sigh soon after. "But these aren't from regular foxes, they were made by the Nine-tails. It looked as if it was perusing a female." He determine this easily because a smaller set of a female tracks were directly in front of the Nine-tails.

"Wha…but how do you know it's the Nine-tails?" Lee asked, hoping that Shikamaru was wrong. "These prints are larger then a regular fox's." Shikamaru said. "And look at these other marks, it's from wiping tails."

"…"

"We need to find it." Shikamaru jumped in to the trees followed closely by Lee.

It wasn't more then a few feet when they started to see more defendant signs, one was a trail of dead foxes. "Males, they were killed most likely because they were in the Nine-tail's way." Shikamaru explained, moving more cautiously, making as little noise as possible.

Then he stopped all together, as if he was waiting for a sign of some type. He got it a few seconds later when a soft breeze blew through the trees making a rustling sound from the leaves. He was checking see if they were up wind or down wind before they proceed any farther, luckily they didn't have to change course because they were down wind.

No more then a few feet away the Nine-Tails had caught the Female. But this is when it was on the highest alert for anything that could possible be a threat. Which was anything other then another female. But in-spite of that they had to get closer some how.

Shikamaru signaled him to be quite while he waited, getting exactly what he was hoping for when the wind blew again. He moved forward as quickly and as quietly as he could manage with Lee trailing behind. The wind made a substantial amount of noise when blowing through trees, he was using that as cover from the Nine-Tail's hearing.

It wasn't long before they were in view of it, and the female that sounding as if it was in a lot of pain. They could easily see why, though I won't go in details... "So what are we supposed to do now?" Lee whispered.

"We wait."

"Damn foxes!" Naruto yelled. He and Gaara had have some trouble finding anything in this forest, let alone a fox. Gaara only shook his head and continued searching, it seemed just about every thing fled from the area. Almost everything.

"It went this way."

Gaara and Naruto looked down to the left where a team of 5 ninjas were standing near a tree, one of them was knelling down next to seemingly nothing. He apparently had an easier time tracking something then they were. Drawn by curiosity, Naruto stopped and looked at the men. "They must be going after the Nine-Tails." Naruto said, watching them go in the opposite direction.

He felt sorry for them, knowing that they were going only to die. He could tell they were some of the village's best just by how easily they were following the demon, he couldn't even see what they were doing it by. It's not as if he could stop them if he tried, they would do what they could to protect the village.

"It's no use worrying about it, their deaths won't be in vein." Gaara told him.

"How can you talk about it like that! What is the propose of them dieing? How isn't it in vein?" Naruto shot back angrily, somehow he felt reasonable for all of this because of what was sealed inside of him.

Gaara wasn't much on the area of making someone feel better, but for Naruto he could try. "If they and everyone else who did the same hadn't have died protected Konoha. Think of how many others would have been in their place, if they didn't, this village probably wouldn't have survived."

Naruto looked at Gaara, then shifted his gaze around the forest. "Yeah, your right." Naruto shrugged. Looking down when he herd a soft rustling sound under him.

Kakashi and Iruka had been much more successful, they found two Females that the Nine-tails had already…mated with. Though they didn't like it, it had to be done. "This fox is quite the hormonal one isn't he." Kakashi said, resting against the trunk of a tree while Iruka tried to determine weather more foxes were in the area. He found it strange that their were no anywhere around.

Iruka ignored that last comment, jumping in to a tree to get a better look around. "We should get going, there's nothing else around here." Iruka told him. Kakashi lazily picked himself up and kept going behind Iruka who seemed to be better at this type of thing.

But he stopped when he saw a group of 5 heading forward on the ground under them.

"It's definitely been here, we're getting closer so stay on your guard." The man in front said. Just barley before he left, Iruka could see his face. It looked just like him, only a little older and some minor differences. That was the man he recognized as….his father.

Iruka had inherited more from his father then just a resemblance, like his natural tracking skills. "What is it?" Kakashi asked.

"That man, he's my father…" Iruka looked at the men heading toward the demon fox.

Kakashi looked at him and could guess what he was thinking. "Your going to try and save him?"

"No…It's just that I can hardly even remember what my parents look like, I just want to see what happened…" Iruka knew what it could do to the present of he kept him alive and that wasn't his intent. He didn't know why, but he just wanted to know what happened.

Kakashi sighed, "We're getting off course."

"If we follow them to the demon then when can follow it and see what it will try and mate with next instead of waiting until it dose it and blindly looking around for the female." Iruka shouted out, it was clear that he already had that excuse ready, he really wanted to do this.

"Fine." Kakashi finally agreed and the second he did Iruka sprang after his father's team.

Under Kakashi's directions Iruka stayed a safe distance back so that they wouldn't be detected. Something like that could easily cause a ripple effect. If Iruka's father's team stopped because they thought something was following them, Then either they would stop and then ignore it and the fox would have moved on. Or they would investigate until they missed their chance completely and the team would remain alive. There was an infinite number of possibilities that could have happened, not all of them good. It was just too risky.

The men stopped at the body of a dead, male wolf. "It must be just ahead, this was done recently." Iruka's father drew a Kunai and continued forward, it made him harder to followed because of how careful they became.

"Sure you want to go though with this?" Kakashi asked, the Nine-tails was in view now, and another female fox that it had just finished mating with. Iruka only nodded, it seemed important that he see his father.

The Nine-Tails was out to move on when it was stuck on the side by a knife with an explosive tag attached. It growl and turned in the direction where it had come from, just as it exploded and erupted a thick cloud of dust obscuring any view.

A strong burst of wind expanded outward from the center of the blast, blowing any dust and debris. It was the Nine-Tail's Chakra, glowing around the demon in a white aura and rising off it like smoke.

"It's power is amazing…" One of the men said, standing just a few feet from the demon.

In a quick motion the 5 men surrounded the fox, attacking from all sides. With a whip of it's tails the demon swatted them all down. "Quickly! Go report back to the village." Iruka's Father told one of the men. He nodded and headed back toward Konoha while the other 4 tried to hold it off. He could tell already that they had no chance, and they knew it too.

Iruka's Father started to use a Jutsu, the hand seals and the name couldn't be seen herd or seen by Kakashi and Iruka. But the wind started to pick up, it quickly swirled the demon and form a tornado, pulling up the earth surrounding them. With a roar the demon used it's Charka to easily blow way the winds.

Iruka looked at his father's face, the look of someone extremely determined man who knew he was destined for death but wouldn't give up any way, he wasn't scared, he wasn't sad, completely resolute. Truly heroic. He turned away, that was how he wanted to remember his father from now on. He didn't see how he was killed, or what his body looked like afterwords.

"Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei!" Lee called over to them. Iruka didn't notice that Lee and Shikamaru were right across the clearing from them. Kakashi was surprised with himself that he didn't notice them earlier, he didn't realize that he was too busy watching Iruka. Waiting to see what the man's reaction would be to the fact that the Nine-Tails had just killed his father in front of him.

"Were is Naruto and Gaara?" Kakashi asked.

"We haven't seen them." Shikamaru responded.

"We need to leave, now." Kakashi voice made it very clear that he meant right now.

"Did we get all of the foxes?" Lee asked.

"We'll know soon enough but-" Iruka was cut off by a loud roar.

They had been found by the Nine-Tails, and it was coming back for them.


	7. Chapter 7: We are the sands of time Part...

Chapter 7: We are the sands of time Part 3

"It's been 20 minutes, they're probably back were we started." Lee said.

"We can't go back that way, It'll follow us. We have to get away from it first." Iruka told them, it seemed that they needed to get away from the perusing demon before going back to find Naruto and Gaara.

A quick flash of orange drew Kakashi's attention. "We need to move now." He said, springing forward to better emphasis his point. The small growl that came from behind did it better though, the remaining 3 sprang forward after Kakashi who led them away.

"We can't lead it toward the Village." Kakashi called back.

Shikamaru held a Kunai in his hand, splitting his attention between following Kakashi and watching the Nine-Tails's movements. Nothing seemed to slow it down, it ran through Trees or anything else that stood in it's way with out missing a steep. "It's too fast…" he said, watching the Demon easily gain on them.

It jumped forward, leaping past all of them and landing in front of Kakashi in a single quick movement. "Kakashi!" Iruka shouted, stopping abruptly. The Nine-Tails leapt forward and grabbed Kakashi by his chest with it's mouth. Or at lest it appeared to be Kakashi but it was really a copy, the Jutsu released revealing a large tree branch with an explosive tag on it.

The explosive tag was directly in it's mouth when it detonated, taking out most of the trees surrounding it in a rush of flying dirt that masked the flames. Iruka looked on in disbelief, The thought of how crossed his mind but it really didn't matter, what did mater was were was Kakashi? "Come on." Iruka looked back to see Kakashi jump down from a tree behind him.

Iruka nodded and followed as Kakashi lead them around the smoke. Just as expected the Nine-Tails survived with little more then a scratch and a much anger then before. It growled viciously, holding all of it's tails outward and pounding them into the ground. A large split tore through the earth as a result, going right under the four.

It turned out to be little more then a display of power because they easily avoided , staying to one side. "At this rate, it'll changed the landscape." Iruka said, looking at the large fracture that extended for at lest a mile. Kakashi turned suddenly, moving to the left then going right back at the Nine-Tails. "What are you doing?"

"We can't get to far away from where the Nine-Tails was originally supposed to go." Kakashi said, but he was standing behind Iruka,

'The other one must be a copy.' Iruka thought, heading to the other side while the Nine-Tails went for Iruka's copy and only found another explosive tag.

"I think we're making it mad…" Lee said, looking back uneasily at the 9 long tails wiping around wildly, fanning away the smoke and dust. It roared furiously, springing forward at them, But it was met with sudden wall of sand.

"Sand Coffin!"

That sand rushed around the Nine-Tails, mixing with the sand that was pulled upward from the ground. The grains swirled around it, encasing it and hardening. Another set of sands were pulled from the ground to add another lay to the attack.

Gaara and Naruto jumped over to them, still looking back at the trapped Nine tails. They could see an intense amount of Chakra radiating from the sands, it wasn't just planning to escape. It was going to blow them apart while doing so.

Gaara's whole body tensed as he pulled more and more sands up from the ground. But instead of using them in another Sand coffin, they began to swirl around the ground forming a whirl pool that pulled the trapped Nine-Tails down 200 feet and hardened. "Let's go!" Kakashi said promptly, Moving with more speed then before to get away from the area.

The other's followed, soon figuring out why they needed to get away from the area so fast. That Charka the Nine-Tails was building finally erupted in a massive explosion, blowing apart and incinerating the earth surrounding it. The flames were pushed outward by the pressure and heat in the center to the explosion, just stopping short of the last person Gaara.

"Did we get all of the foxes?" Naruto asked.

"I'm not sure, If we didn't get them all we got most of them." Lee told him, they got at lest enough for Konoha to fight off with a lot less damage.

"Let's go then!"

"It's not that simple." Iruka said. "We can't go back until we draw the Nine Tails back on it's original path."

Naruto growled in a mixture of fear and annoyance. "How far away is it?"

"We're almost there."

The short distance became a lot longer when the Nine-Tails jumped in front of them, it's body glowing with Charka. "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Naruto quickly did the hand seals, one Naruto becoming hundreds, surrounding the fox from all sides.

With all the copies, the real Naruto and the others were easily able to slip past the Nine-Tails. Then all of the copies, with explosive tags attached, launched a wall of Kunais at the demon from all sides. But the Nine-Tails whipped it's tails , knocking away most of them, and expelled it's Chakra to defect the others.

It sent a rain of tagged down over the area, mostly over the group. They scatted, knowing this was going to be one hell of an attack to avoid. Lee jumped to the side to avoid one, springing backwards away from it with his eyes steadily gazing upwards to see incoming ones. But the trees that gave some cover also blocked the view of the Kunais giving only split seconds to react. But that wasn't nearly enough time to avoid the explosions that came when the tags detonated.

The blasts that followed knocked all of them to the ground, making them easy targets for the other raining blades. Iruka rolled to the side blindly through the smoke and flying debris, feeling a knife land in his leg. His eyes went wide and he scrabbled to pull it out, put he only managed to pull out the tag. As soon as it lifted in to the air it exploded, burning Iruka and driving the knife deeper in to his leg.

He felt another Kunai just barely graze the skin of his neck and land to the left of him. By some off chance another landed on the other side of his neck, and another landed in his side. He winced in pain, thankfully feeling no tag in the ones by his neck but there was one attached to the blade in his side. Iruka quickly pulled the knife out and tossed in the air, hearing it intercept another Kunai in the air and explode.

"Retsu ha geki no Jutsu!" Iruka thrust his hands forward and a blast of intense wind emitted from them, the air was filled with Charka and tore through the Kunai's and the tags above him. He could hear a chain of explosions from above to confirm this. But another Kunai came diagonally and pierced his left arm.

With a grunt he pulled it out and tossed it away, feeling a tag-less blade pierce in to his other leg. He grunted and ignored it lifting his arms with much more pain then before. "Full Power Retsu ha geki no Jutsu!"

Even more Chakra was expended in this rush of air, all smoke and debris around him was blown away giving him a clear view. 10 or so Kunais were flying toward him from that direction, but they were shattered under the Chakra infused wind along with the tags. Another chain of explosions followed.

Looking back he could vaguely see Kakashi through a cloud of dust taking a more manual approach to the situation. With a Kuna in each hand, he used his senses to target an incoming knife and knock it away. Not even Kakashi could avoid all of those blades coming at him from all sides, at lest on his sense alone.

Iruka lifted his arms toward Kakashi, "Retsu ha geki no Jutsu!" He fired the burst of wind and the last bit of his Chakra toward Kakashi, carefully aiming above him and destroying all of them from every side except the back. The dust and smoke was also clear, letting Kakashi see where they Kunais were coming from next and also what had helped him.

Kakashi avoided the next set, running towards Iruka. It was clear he wouldn't make it in time so he tossed both blades in his hands with amazing aim and knocking away two Kunais coming directly for the other man. "Kakashi, your alright… Why am I not surprised. " Iruka said with a small smirk, hiding the fact that his body hurt like hell.

Kakashi looked around, awaiting anything else. "I had help."

"I'm alright?" Naruto said to himself, he'd been knocked off his feet by an explosion and more Kunais were coming down on him. But nothing hit…

He rolled on to his back finding a barrier of sand in front of him. "Gaara?" He looked around, but was surrounded by nothing but sand. The barrier fell through, covering Naruto with sand that he easily dust off.

Lee and Shikamaru we're next to him and they also had been covered and protected by Gaara's sand. The first thing all of then noticed was the condition of the forest, everything was in flames. Everything that was left at lest, they had a clear view of the sky, a complete change from what it was before.

It gave an almost eerie feeling, mainly because the only thing they couldn't see what the Nine-Tails. It had left in the middle of the explosions probably thinking that they were dead, and with good reason.

Gaara nearby panting heavily, he wasn't the most agile person and even with his sand to protect him, that many explosions at once did it damage. He had more then a few cuts over his body and blood was everywhere. Naruto ran worriedly over to him.

Halfway there he saw a flash of silver in the corner of his eye and stopped. A kunai soared pasted him, cutting through his pocket and just barley missing his leg. "Huh?" Naruto looked back at it and saw the concentration stone he'd gotten earlier was being carried by the tip of the blade.

The black stone was pinned to the ground by the Kunai and the tag exploded, knocking Naruto off his feet. The blast unleashed the Charka trapped in side and it came rushing out with enough force to drop everyone to the ground. The white energy soared upward in an almost beam like form creating strong winds.

There was more then enough Charka in the stone to reach the clouds.

Everyone watched as the last of it drained out of the destroyed stone. "I think we need to leave before we make things worse!" Lee shouted over the dieing winds.

Kakashi made it over to the rest of the group with Iruka's arm around his shoulder and a few strips of his clothing around the wounds on his arm, legs and side. Both of them apparently agreeing with Lee.

Gaara pulled the Hour glass off his back, which he made sure would survive with extra care. Kakashi, Shikamaru, Naruto and Lee placed a hand on Gaara's back as he started the process. All of them waiting until there surrounds had safely melted in to rushing sand before letting go.

"How much could it change? We didn't take out that much of the forest and it probably would have been destroyed by the Nine-Tails anyway." Lee said optimistically. "I hope your right." Shikamaru sighed.

They had accomplished what they set out to do in-spite of the Nine-Tails's interference.


	8. Chapter 8: It’s gonna rain

Chapter 8: It's gonna rain

"Everything looks alright to me…" Naruto said upon their return to their normal time. The damages were much lower, hardly any were result from the attack last night.

"We did it, I just can't believe we didn't screw up it up worse." Lee said, sighing in relief. "I told you there isn't always a bad result."

"I guess more good then bad came out of it in the end." Shikamaru admitted, folding his arms and looking around for anything out of place.

"I don't know, something seems off." Gaara glanced upward...

Naruto looked up at him "What is it?"

Gaara looked around, trying to think of what was out of place here but couldn't come up with anything. "I'm not sure, but it's probably not important…" Gaara shrugged and discarded the thought. He still couldn't shrug off the feeling of being out of place.

"I hope so….Hey, where did Kakashi and Iruka go?" Naruto looked around a saw no trace of them.

"They already left." Shikamaru said, laying rest to a few worries that they were left behind. That would have explained the out of place feeling.

Finding nothing out of the ordinary, Shikamaru finally relaxed "I have to admit, this was an interesting experience."

Lee nodded in agreement "If you ever go again, I'll be ready anytime." he said with his usual smile and thumbs up.

"I'll be sure to find you." Naruto smirked.

Lee and Shikamaru left, most likely to Lee's house because it was closer from where they were.

Any train of thought after that moment was interrupted by Naruto's stomach growling loudly. He rubbed his head with a small laugh "Let's go get something to eat!" He said happily.

Gaara looked down at his own stomach, he was a little hungry and out of Chakra anyways. "Alright then, What did you have in mind." 

A large grin came across Naruto's face when he asked that.

Lee walked in to the familiar house finding the door unlocked. "I hope you don't mind Kiba, the door was…" He stopped in the living room, looking at Kiba asleep on the couch with one leg up on the table. It was bandaged, most likely injured from the demons last night.

Neji was asleep next to him with his head on the Kiba's shoulder, Akamaru in his lap also asleep.

"Hmm…" They looked peaceful sleeping there, one, Neji in particular, looked as if he needed sleep more.

Shikamaru laid down in the back yard under the shade of a tree, lifting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. It was hot, hotter then it was yesterday. It was actually a drastic weather change from the temperature of 60 the day before, to 90 today. Out loud it didn't sound like a lot, but the difference spoke for itself when it was felt.

There was some relief from the heat, a cool, humid breeze blew through frequently. So it felt much better outside the indoors.

The clouds were thick today, so thick that hardly any sun could be seen in-between. Making the sky appear white, and making Shikamaru wonder how hot would it be if the sun was actually visible. Konoha never got this hot, especially in the spring.

A heat wave?

Kakashi waited impatiently outside the hospital room. He was actually mad because they wouldn't let him yet. "The patient needs his rest." A nurse said. Kakashi only nodded silently when he was really ready too break the door down.

It had been an hour, he was pretty sure they were done with whatever treatment they were going to do. But standing outside the door being angry wouldn't make them let him in, but if he herd "You can't come in the patient needs his rest." one more time he'd go insane.

"Fine." Kakashi said, walking away from the nurse and heading to the waiting room. With an annoyed sigh he sat down in a chair. Now that he was off his feet he realized how tired he was.

But he'd never be able to fall asleep knowing the last time he saw Iruka, he was covered in blood and had Kumis and burn marks covering his body. He remembered hoping the man wouldn't bleed to death one the way back, hearing Iruka say something about feeling light headed.

Now that he stopped to think, he realized he was covered in Iruka's blood. The front part of his shirt was soaked, most parts of it still wet. Around his back were Iruka's arm had been was also red, and sense he slouched a little because of his injuries, the part of Kakashi's pants that had been near Iruka's side was also red.

"Hmm…" He also realized that in retrospect, sitting in this white chair was a bad idea. Kakashi quickly got up and as he expected, most of the leather seat was stained red with blood. He didn't exactly like that this was Iruka's blood, it was an eerie feeling.

Kakashi retrieved a few supplies and cleaned the blood off the chair, thinking as he did so. He knew he had to go home, take a shower and change clothes. But he'd feel horrible if he left Iruka here, he felt bad just considering it.

Kakashi never like hospital much, so he really didn't want to leave Iruka alone in one. But still he had too, as quickly as possible.

Naruto had of course taken Gaara to his favorite restaurant Ichiraku, and he'd ordered an extra large bowl of Ramen. "You mean you never had Ramen before?" Naruto asked.

"No." Gaara said plainly.

"You have to try some then." Naruto said, ordering another bowl.

Gaara looked at the steaming noodles, taking his chopsticks and lifting a few of them in to his mouth questingly. "Good eh?" Naruto said eating more of his own.

"Well…not _bad_." Gaara gave him some response.

"Not bad? That's it?" Naruto asked, looking up at Gaara with a raised eyebrow. "Yeah, it's ok." Gaara said plainly, swirling the ramen around in his bowl.

"Where did you go?" Shikamaru asked, knowing it was Lee approaching him though his eyes were closed. Lee always walked lightly, so Shikamaru could distinguish his footsteps from others.

"No where in particular." He said plainly, easing himself down on the ground next to the boy.

"It's hot, I don't see how you can stand wearing that body suit?" Shikamaru said, laying his head on Lee's back. Shikamaru had found it was too warm for all the clothing he was wearing and now only had on his pants.

"This thing keeps me pretty cool, especially with all of this wind." Lee told him. The green fiber was quite breathable so the breeze were enough to keep him from getting too hot.

"This wind is getting strong looks like it's going to rain soon." Shikamaru said.

The sky didn't have a gray cloud insight, but the wind was strong and extremely humid. With conditions like this it wouldn't be long before a storm started. "Yeah, I guess so."

Gaara sat alone on a roof top he was sure one would recognize him on. No one would probably find him here either- except Kakashi of course, who was never looking in the first place. "Gaara, what are the odds."

The man had cleaned up since the last time he saw him, He'd cleaned the blood off himself and changed clothing. Gaara looked up acknowledgingly but remained silent. "I been meaning to ask you something since you had an Epiphany and all. Why do you like Naruto." He asked, clearly not trying to discourage but just to know.

"What do you mean?" Gaara asked.

"Exactly what I said." Kakashi told him. Gaara thought about it for a second….

"Because he was the only person that understood me, when I was drowning in my self he saved me." Gaara said, still thinking as he talked.

"Wow, that's deep." Kakashi folded his arms and walked away.

"I guess the main reason is because... he lets me sleep."

Kakashi stopped and looked back, "Huh?"

"When I'm with him I can fall asleep and still be myself." Gaara said.

"Maybe it's because of the _strenuous activities_, I wonder." Kakashi had noticed Gaara was different, more so today. But after years of insomnia, who wouldn't be happy after a good night's rest.

Iruka groan from pain opened his eyes and immediately lifted his hands to his pounding head. That's when he realized his first mistake after a sharp pain shot through his left arm. It made him cringe and sit up.

His second mistake, the wound on his arm began to hurt. He let out a soft cry of pain and felt two hands pushing him back down on to the bed.

"You're your own worst enemy."

Iruka looked up and saw Kakashi standing over him. "Kakashi!" Iruka said, flinching in surprise, making another sharp pain shoot through his body.

"See." Kakashi said, sitting on the edge of the bed next to him.

"Thanks for getting me here." Iruka said, pulling down Kakashi's mask with his _right_ hand and lifting himself for a kiss.

"No problem." Kakashi smirked, running circles on Iruka's bare chest with his finger before pushing him back down.

Iruka realized he was wearing nothing but boxers, the rest of his clothes were ripped and bloody. "I'll bring you something to wear." Kakashi said.


	9. Chapter 9: The calm before the storm

Chapter 9: The calm before the storm

"I thought these winds were getting a little strong…" Shikamaru looked around his back yard as he was awaken by a piece of paper flying in to his face. It had changed much since he fell asleep, which had been 20 minutes at the most. Shikamaru nudged Lee in his side with his elbow getting a soft moan from the boy.

"What?" He groaned sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

Shikamaru pointed toward the sky where a thick line of gray clouds seemed to have been making their way to Konoha. "Konoha's rainy season can be bothersome at times." Shikamaru sighed.

"Look at the size of it…" Lee stood up, walking forward while he looked over the approaching storm. The clouds were bulky and reached up high in to the sky like a pillar, their color more black then gray.

"We maybe in for a bad one." Shikamaru said, stretching his arms above his head, figuring it may be safer to stay awake. With slight disappointment that his nap was ruined, Shikamaru walked in to the house and found his father boarding up windows. "What's going on?"

He didn't looked back, he continued working with a sense of urgency. "I was going to go back there and wake you two up, just look outside, we have one hell of a storm coming." He said, picking up another board and laying it across the first one he nailed up. "It's that bad?" Lee asked. The man nodded and picked up a nail.

"Then I better get back home and do the same." Lee sighed,

Shikamaru figured that even he couldn't be lazy at a time like this. "I'll help." Shikamaru followed him. He was usually lazy but it seemed Shikamaru thought the situation may have proven too serious to be so this time.

"Alright son, just make sure your back here or at lest somewhere safe soon."

"Naruto wake up." Gaara shook the boy slighting, he had went to sleep for the day soon after they had returned.

Naruto rolled over towards Gaara and opened his eyes, "…Your back." he said sleepily.

"I think you should take a look out side…" Gaara told him. Naruto blinked a few times, then pulled the covers off himself.

"Is it something I need to get dressed for?" Naruto asked, standing only in his boxers.

"Yes." Gaara nodded, as soon as he said the word Naruto moved with his usual speed, putting on his cloths in record time.

"Ok, I'm ready." Naruto said, standing in front of a dazed Gaara who was wondering if it was really possible to move that fast. Thinking he may have fallen asleep himself because everything seemed surreal now.

"I see it, look's like it's going to rain. So?" Naruto said, standing on the roof.

"Look around, this is not an ordinary storm." Gaara told him, People were scrambling to do tasks before the storm hit. Stores were being cleared out, windows were being boarded up, anything that could be easily blown away was being taken down or fastened down. And some people were just leaving altogether.

All the signs of an ominous natural disaster.

Naruto looked back towards the approaching clouds with new perspective, it suddenly seemed worse then when he first saw it. That's when he started to notice things, like how the wind seemed to be strong enough to blow his cloths off. "Shouldn't we be trying to cover the windows?" Gaara asked.

"Naw, that would just be wasting time. There's nothing in my house I want to save." Naruto said discardingly, jumping off the roof and on to the street. "Come on!" Naruto hastily waved Gaara forward.

"Why? Where are we going?" Gaara asked, jumping down and running after him.

"I have to stock up on Ramen before it's all gone!"

Gaara rolled his eyes, Naruto couldn't really be serious… On second thought 'Maybe he is.' It was better then sitting around and doing nothing.

Gaara found himself capable of doing nothing but following, since he didn't know what he would do in this situation. Especially since he was never put in something that could be this potently life threatening. Looking toward the horizon he could see this stormed promised to be powerful.

Lighting roared through the clouds, stretching from the mass of black ones at lest a mile away and easily passing over Konoha. It was eerie how it was becoming dark so quickly, and that lighting could be seen over head but no thunder was heard.

"Naruto, your not really going to find Ramen are you?" Gaara asked.

"If I see some I'll get it, but other then that…" Naruto slowed, looking around him for something…But apparently didn't see it because he kept going.

"Naruto."

Naruto and Gaara stopped again a few feet ahead. "Iruka?" Naruto turned back to see Kakashi and Iruka behind them.

"Isn't it dangerous to be out with those type of injuries?" Gaara asked, noticing that Iruka was using a crutch because of his leg.

"It's dangerous everywhere, what are you too doing out here?" Iruka asked.

"Just looking around…" Naruto said.

"This isn't the time to be looking around." Kakashi said, folding his arms and watching the people rush past them.

"Yeah, Every store has been bought out and people are trying to make their final preparations. It looks like it's 11th hour is here." Iruka sighed.

"Huh?" Naruto scratched his head confusedly.

"I mean the storm is almost here." Iruka told him.

"Oh."

"Excuse me."

The 4 turned around and found 2 men standing there, One had the Cloud village insignia on his forehead protector and the other had the Mist. "I need to speak to the Hokage immediately, do you know where he is?" The Man from the Cloud asked.

"Why?" Kakashi asked.

"It's about this storm, we've come to warn you." He said.

"A little late don't you think?" Kakashi said, looking toward the topic of interest. The man from the Mist shook his head.

"No, it more dangerous then you think . The damage to the Mist, Cloud, and Water villages are total, this storm completely wiped all of us out."

All of them tensed visibly except for Kakashi who still managed to stay in his cool demeanor. "If the storm has been over land that long, it must have lost most of it's energy by now." Iruka said hopefully.

The rain began to fall, coming in a soft sprinkle even though the storm had to be a few mile away from the village. "The Cloud Village had been tracking this storm since it first appeared, we found that it formed with a large amount of Chakra in the air-" The Man from the Cloud started. That should have been clue number one, but the only one who really gave it some connection to what it was Iruka.

He wasn't sure about though.

"- That Chakra is what is making the storm cell so powerful and fast." He finished. "If the storm is this bad, shouldn't an evacuation be called?" Gaara asked.

The man from the Mist shook his head, "It's far too late for that, Few people here are fast enough and have the stamina to keep going to get out of the storm's path. It'd be safer is you stay here."

"Wait! If the Cloud, Mist and Water we're wiped out, how is it safer to stay here?" Naruto asked, shouting over the wind.

"Just get underground, you'll be safe there." The Man from the Mist said.

The man from the Cloud wiped the water from his face and held his arm up to shield himself from the wind. "Another thing we noticed about this storm was that it formed over Konoha." He said.

Something was off, Iruka knew it... "What do you mean?"

"All of the Chakra that's powering the storm originated from here, Our time frame scenarios all show that it could have been in the air years around this before it entered a storm cell." The man from the Cloud told them.

If it didn't come together for everyone else besides Iruka before, it did now. The Chakra from the concentration stone that exploded in the past had went up in to air. It held massive amounts of energy, enough to create a super powered storm. Which is what was happening now. "It may be coming fast, but that storm cell is large, it will take an hour at the least to pass over Konoha at it's current speed. That's more then enough time needed to destroy everything." The Man from the mist sighed.

"All the Villages you named were to the north, this storm is coming from the east." Kakashi pointed out.

The man from the Cloud only shrugged "It moves very erratically, It covered a lot of empty ground not on the path to any where in particular and that's how we were able to make it here before the storm came. If it went to the east it may have hit The Sand before it came here."

"Well, you'll have an easier time finding the Leaf's council then the Hokage. Go to them, they're above the Hokage memorial….That may not have been the best place to meet but…" Kakashi shook his head and pointing them in the right direction.

While they talked the rain had grown substantially, it was now a heavy downpour that mixed with the wind. "Oh man! This is worse then those foxes!" Naruto shouted. A quick flash came from the left as lightning struck someplace in the forest. Thunder rolled through the sky, loud enough to cover all other sounds.

The storm wasn't completely here yet, there was still a lot of light coming from the sky. But it'd be as dark as midnight in about 15 minutes, that's how long those men had to warn Konoha. With the Help of the Council it would take 5, so they didn't have to worry about that.

"Come on!" Kakashi said to Iruka with his back turned to the man. Iruka looked at him confusedly, noticing he wasn't moving.

"Let's go then." Iruka said.

"You'll never make it alone, it'll be faster if I carry you." Kakashi said.

Iruka looked at him for a moment, debating on if he should save his pride by trying to go on with out help. He almost stumbled back when a strong wind blew through, If a relatively soft breeze could knock him over what pride did he have to save? Kakashi was right, that was the only way he'd make it. Iruka sighed 'At lest it's Kakashi…'

Kakashi lifted Iruka on to his back, grinning sheepishly under the mask as he did so. "Your enjoying this aren't you." Iruka said, looking over his shoulder.

"Yes."

"I'm glad you to are happy but we do have bigger problems." Gaara said. "Like we're are we supposed to go?"

"We have to go back and stop that rock from blowing up." Naruto said.

"Why doesn't that surprise me." Iruka shook his head. Weighing the chances of them going back making things even worse in his mind. It couldn't get much worse then this, the storm had taken out 3, possibly 4 other Villages, and The Leaf was next. Nothing could stop it from turning Konoha in to a pile of rubble….except for going back in the past and stopping it.

"Easier said then done." Kakashi said, looking ahead and seen a tree flying at them. He crouched down and avoided it, Gaara and Naruto were short enough for it to pass them over.

The burst of wind carrying it crashed into them right after, knocking all of them to the ground and lifting Naruto in to the air.


	10. Chapter 10: 5 minutes: part 2

Chapter 10: 5 minutes: part 2

Gaara reached up, grabbing Naruto by his leg before the wind could pull him too far. "WHAAAA!" Naruto yelled, still being pulled by the sudden burst of air. Gaara managed to pull him back as the breeze subsided, unharmed. "Thanks." he said, holding his chest and breathing a little harder from the…embarrassing experience.

"Are you alright Naruto?" Iruka asked.

"Yeah, but you…Your never going to make it." Naruto said, noticing that by some miracle, Iruka stayed on his feet.

"He's right, You need to get someplace safe." Kakashi said, his voice leaving no room for any negotiation. Iruka knew he was right.

"Alright." Iruka sighed, turning to Naruto and Gaara. " By the looks of it, we have 5 minutes to get underground before things get worse. The closest place is my house, in the basement there's a hatch that leads to an underground path way. We'll meet there. Don't take any unnecessary risk, and no matter what after 3 have past minutes. Get. Going." Iruka made sure it was very clear.

Naruto and Gaara nodded, watching Iruka and Kakashi head in the opposite direction.

"I've never seen a storm grow so bad so quickly." Shikamaru said. He looked up at the sky, one half was pitch black, only illuminated by the lighting strikes coming from the layer of clouds above it. The other half still blue and completely normal, the sun was even shining.

"That's the last one." Lee said, dropping the hammer in his hand and wiping the rain from his eyes. He had every single window boarded up, and every important item in his home boxed, sealed, and buried in his back yard. The last one was on Shikamaru's suggestion, knowing that was the only way they would survive.

"Then let's go." Shikamaru said nervously.

"They said we're supposed to get underground…but I don't know any storm cellars or anywhere for that matter." Lee looked to Shikamaru, hoping he knew a place.

Shikamaru thought about it for a second, but came up blank "I'm not sure of one either, but maybe my father knows."

5 minutes left

The path to Iruka's house was pretty strait forward, only the wind and Iruka's weight was standing in Kakashi's way. It may have been faster to go by roof top, but it was more dangerous. The wind could easily knock the off, so they had to stay on the ground and use the houses and buildings as wind shields.

"Iruka, your going to have to watch behind me." Kakashi called back, charging down the open street. All of it was completely empty now, except for one or two other people that had warned Konoha and still scouting around for anyone they hadn't told before they got to safety themselves.

Iruka pulled a Kunai from Kakashi's holder, scanning the area for anything that could be a potential danger. Now that he actually looked in dept, every thing was a potential danger. More so in the sky, because the storm had already he hit the forest. It was tossing trees around, and some of them just managed to reach Konoha.

Iruka's eyes went wide when he saw one of them was barreling toward them. He quickly pulled an explosive tag from Kakashi's holder, wrapping it around the handle of the Kunai and tossing it toward a house to the left of them.

The house appeared to be normal…until a tree smashed threw it, turning it into a scattered mass of flying wood. The Kunai struck the center of the tree and exploded, surrounding Iruka and Kakashi in a cloud of smoke and small pieces of wood.

Both emerged unharmed, Kakashi not missing a steep and still running at full speed.

4 minutes 10 seconds left

Unfortunately for Lee and Shikamaru, there destination was east. The direction the storm was coming from, and walking directly into all of the wind it produced. So each burst of wind slowed them down severely, and they were coming more frequently as their time limit decreased.

Lee lifted his arms to his face, covering it from the burst but opening them just enough to see. He felt a hand pulling him to the side, looking over he could see Shikamaru leading him so he followed to the best of his ability.

He led him behind a house, using it to shield the wind. "Were going to have to do this often to keep from being blown away." Shikamaru said.

Lee pressed his back against the wall, listening as the breeze began to decline. He stuck his arm out, not feeling the strong one that pushed them back before. "Let's go!"

He and Shikamaru ran from behind their shield, charging forward as fast as they could.

Shikamaru stopped.

Noticing in the distance that a large tree from the forest was coming at them. He crouched down while Lee jumped above it, both of them being pushed back by the wind that carried it.

"This is pointless! We'll never make it at this rate." Lee said, forced to yell over the noise.

Shikamaru and Lee pushed their way into a nearby store, finding it abandoned like just about every other place. "Your right, we can't keep going upwind the air current is too strong. We need to think of another place to go." Shikamaru sat against a nearby wall, pulling off the jacket he wore over his shirt.

3 minute 30 seconds left.

Gaara and Naruto took a different approach. Instead of traveling by ground like everyone else, they went by roof top, using Gaara's sand as a shield, but that that created a completely different set of problems.

Naruto grabbed on to Gaara's waist, diving to the side off the building and pulling him along. As soon as they got in to the air, lightning came down from the sky, just barely missing both of them. The building exploded in a rush of flames and debris, knocking both of them disorientedly in to a window across the street.

"This is getting weird…" Naruto said, picking himself up after a painful fall. He reached out a hand and pulled Gaara to his feet.

"It's like this lightning is attracted to me." Gaara said, looking around nervously. He involuntarily jumped when he heard thunder roaring outside. Just as before lightning struck the house, causing the roof to explode.

When the smoke cleared, Naruto had once again been protected by Gaara's sand. "Oh man, maybe it really is!" Naruto said, stumbling out of the smoke and into relatively fresh air. Only to be knocked off his unbalanced feet by another strong wind.

Thunder rolled threw the sky again making Gaara instinctively dive forward, avoiding a bolt of lightning that struck the ground behind him. It had some splash damage to it, knocking him off his feet from the force. Naruto was there in a second to pull him up.

"Naruto, I don't know what's going on but you should stay back." Gaara said.

"No way, If you get hit, I get hit. Just keep going and you can stay ahead of it!" Naruto said, Running behind him and pushing him forward. The constant Chakra Gaara used because of his sand acted as a lightning rod for the storm, so every second he was above ground he would be plagued by it.

Gaara ran forward, the sand starting to become more of a hindrance then an advantage. It worked as a windshield, but it slowed him down. If Naruto wasn't behind him pushing him forward, the lighting would have already caught up with him.

"Faster! Faster! Faster! Faster! Run, Run Run!" Naruto screamed, feeling a strong heat burning at his back from another lightning strike.

The strikes started to come in higher succession as the storm drew closer, light was fading fast making it harder to find their way. The wind was getting stronger, and the amount of rain that was falling seemed surreal. "2 minutes left, I think we should head back. I can't even see where I'm going." Gaara called back.

2 minutes left

"We can make it, My house is right there!" Naruto pointed forward, apparently able to see through this better then Gaara could. "Maybe you should stay out side… since the lightning likes you and all."

Gaara nodded, steeping to the side as Naruto lifted his arms to his face and forward towards his house. He forgot to keep moving while trying to see where Naruto was exactly and was blind sided by another strike of lightning. The sand causing this was doing less to protect him now that the storm was so close and the bolt expended less energy to reach him.

He was knocked to the ground before he even realized it, the blast that did so was enough to break through the sand barrier and send a rush of electricity through his body. "AAhhhhuuun!" He felt his senses dulling, The water soaking his body almost gave the lighting enough of an edge to knock him out. But it was over too soon to do so.

Gaara flinched when a deafeningly loud roll of thunder shook Konoha, but this time the lighting didn't come down on him.

"Whaaaaa!"

"Naruto!" Gaara climbed to his feet, almost knocked back down from the blast of another explosion. It was so close that he could see where it happened by the light the flash of lightning produced, he could also see Naruto's body flying at him.

1 minute 30 seconds left

Gaara dived back and grabbed him out of the air, both of them falling and sliding to a stop only a few feet away. Those few feet were just enough space to avoid another lighting strike that managed to send a wave of mud over them instead. All of this sudden water was either going to making Konoha flood or turn it in to a pile of mud.

"Gaara, my house blew up before I could get the hour glass." Naruto's loud voice was barely able to let Gaara here him.

"It's alright, let's just go." Gaara screamed at the top of his lungs, grabbing Naruto's hand and pulling him up. Now that the wind was pushing them forward, they got a big boost in speed, enough to leave any lighting trailing them in the dust. Konoha was almost a blur, this more then made up for the resistance they faced before.

1 minute left

Going as fast as they were and with the sun partially blocked, Naruto's quick eyes were still enough to spot something to the left of him. It made him come to a sliding stop, almost falling on the muddy ground. "Lee! Shikamaru!"

He spotted them in a nearby house, apparently still thinking. "Naruto, Gaara, we have to get underground, what are you doing?" Shikamaru asked, he and Lee were bombarded by water as soon as they steeped out.

"Iruka's house, there's an underground passage in the basement." Naruto told them, going forward again with the wind so strong that they almost were being carried by it.

'What are the odds?' Lee thought to himself, following after Naruto and Gaara.

The clouds cover about half of the sun, casting a growing shadow over Konoha. At their speed they stayed just ahead of the shadow and in the last of the sunlight, giving them just enough illumination to see where they were going.

30 seconds left

"Damnit, Is that a tornado!"

The 4 looked over to see Sasuke, Neji and Kiba with Konohamaru on his back.

"Hey!" Naruto called over.

Sasuke glared at him, "I don't have time for you dobe.

"This is important jerk!" Naruto shouted, "The Cloud, Mist, Water, and maybe the Sand villages have all been completely wiped off the map by this storm. We need to get to get under ground. Now!"

"Do you know a place?" Kiba asked.

"Iruka's house, Come on!" Naruto took the lead, seeing their destination just ahead.

5 seconds left.

The sun was completely blocked out now, they could barely see were they were going. The storm became immensely worse, every time they were off the ground the wind threatened to carry them away. With that in mind, they wouldn't have time to open the door.

"Mud slide!" Konohamaru shouted.

4 seconds left

A large amount of mud was coming down from the Hokage monument, It was flowing from the other side of the house headed directly toward them. The more water it got from the rain, the quicker it was able to move.

3 seconds left.

It was down to the wire now, time was up and they knew it. So Sasuke took the lead, turning around in the air and jumping backwards threw Iruka's window to shield his face from the glass.

2 seconds left.

He came threw right over the stairway leading to the basement, with out touching the ground he kicked off a nearby wall. Diving in to the basement with everyone following closely behind.

1 second left

He fell blindly in the dark, landing in the open hatch the led to the underground path. Landing on his back, he rolled in a fluid motion and came to his feet. Almost running in to Kakashi as he did so.

0

Next came Naruto, followed closely by Gaara. Then Neji and lastly Kiba with Akamaru under one arm and Konohamaru in the other.

The mud rushed through the house, smashing through the upper levels and breaking the down. All of it came pouring into the underground passage, rushing forward at them in a wall of murky water.


	11. Chapter 11: The pathway

Chapter 11: The pathway

The sound of strong wind and rain could be heard ahead of them in the dark passage, it was even louder then the rushing water behind them. The path started to slope up hill apposed to it leading down hill like before, the transition was sudden and caught them off guard because of how steep the up was , it was almost like running in to a wall.

To make matters worse, at the top of the climb the passage was open to the storm. They had ran under the forest had came to the place where Sasuke used the super charged Chidori against Itachi on ground already weakened by explosive tags and a lighting strike. So the thick waters streamed down the hill from the outside because of the massive amounts of rain, making the path extremely hard to climb.

They didn't have time for extremely hard, a wall of water was coming at them. Everyone had to find their on way up and hope their teammates did the same, considering that they couldn't see or hear anyone other then themselves.

Naruto ran into the hill, landing face first into a stream of water. He felt around, trying to find something to grab on to and lift himself up… Nothing, the water had eroded the surface until it was completely smooth, he'd have to find another way, now.

He felt the wet from behind washing at his ankles, time was up, the wall of water was only a few feet away from him. Naruto jumped in to the air, quickly doing a few hand seals "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" Changing himself from one to 3.

The two clones appeared on the ground, grabbing him by his jacket collar, tossing him in to the air where he crashed at the top.

Kakashi pulled two Kunai's from his holder, with one in each hand he planting them into the wall and lifted himself and Iruka upward. He felt the water crash in to the wall with strong force, almost making him losing his grip and he would have if Iruka wouldn't have reached forward and pulled him forward and back in to balance.

Lee and Shikamaru took the same approach only in a different way. The two expended their whole supply of shrunken, tossing them up the wall and creating a ladder that they easily climbed. And Gaara of course used the sand to lift him.

Visibility was at 0, they could hardly breath without almost drowning from the rain, and the only thing that kept them from being ripped off the ground by the winds was the tree roots offering some small relief above them. They could have gone any number of places but instinct told them to go strait forward, until they fell in to a hole, which was the second part of the path separated by Chidori's blast.

Kakashi was the first down, sliding gracefully down the slope streaming with water just as the one before it. Naruto fell through next, rolling painfully down the few feet until reached even unsloped ground and crashing in to a wall. Shikamaru and Lee slid down not so gracefully but managed to stay on their feet until they got to the bottom.

Gaara jumped down landing right next to Naruto, but lost his balance and fell on the boy.

"AHHWhhhh..." Naruto yelped at the sudden weight smashing him down.

Gaara quickly lifted himself off of Naruto, wiping the water from his face with his forearm. "Sorry."

Naruto pressed his hand against the wall and lifted himself up. "No problem." He looked around, able to see everyone through a flash of lighting but his question was blocked out by the sound of thunder that shook through the cave. Shaking his head and holding his ears, he asked again "We're missing some people, What happened to Sasuke and everyone that was with him?"

Either he didn't hear an answer or more likely no one could give one.

After a few idle seconds Lee was able to piece together his thoughts and give one. "I saw them… barely though, He, Konohamaru, Neji and Kiba went the other way. There was another cave like this one outside, they must have gone into it."

"You could see anything out there?" Naruto said with a hint of surprise in his voice.

Lee nodded, "Not much though."

The entrance of the cave suddenly began clasping, the rain made the exposed ground weak so it couldn't support the trees and all of it fell through. Everything down to where Kakashi was standing at the bottom of the hill caved in, blocking the path with dirt, mud, trees and rocks. Any source of light from lightning or otherwise was cut off, along with the steady stream of water coming from the surface.

"Looks like the only way to go is forward, do you know where this tunnel leads?" Gaara asked, clearly directing his question towards Iruka.

"I'm not sure, I've never been this deep inside of it." Iruka said, climbing off Kakashi's back now that the immediate danger was over.

"Then let's go find out." Kakashi said, reaching over to the barricade blocking the path behind him and breaking off a branch. He began to do some unknown processes in the dark and a few seconds later it sparked and ignited in flames. "Are we waiting for something in particular?" Kakashi asked, seeing that everyone was looking at him.

With a source of light they proceeded forward, finding the tunnel was completely strait forward. No twist or turns just a strait line that they could have followed in the dark. "It looks like we maybe be down here for a while." Iruka sighed, seeing that this tunnel wouldn't end any time soon.

"Isn't that a good thing, it seems relatively safe down here." Shikamaru said, he couldn't even hear the storm from this place.

"Looks like there was something good that came from all of that running." Lee sounded genuinely thankful. "I just hope Sasuke's group is doing this well."

"I'm sure their fine, there seems to be quite a few tunnels under Konoha and the surrounding forests." Gaara told him, knowing there would have to be more then 2 of them.

"You know…you seem different." Lee commented, Gaara just smirked to himself.

"Epiphany." Kakashi said from behind the two.

Naruto looked back, "What dose that mean?"

"It's like an enlightenment." Gaara told him.

"Oh, so how did that happen?"

"You."

"Me?"

"It happen some time between when you were beating some sense in to him and when he showed up the next day." Kakashi interrupted, getting an elbow in the side from Iruka.

"Everything you said to me, it stayed with me, I couldn't get it out of my head." Gaara said. "It's probably the only reason I'm still alive, and sane."

"You were sane before?" Lee asked jokingly. Gaara looked back at him and rolled his eyes getting a small suppressed laugh in return.

"So now that your not…" Shikamaru paused, trying to choose his words. "Well, what are you planning on doing next?"

Gaara thought about it for a moment, "What do you mean?"

"You clearly want to stay with Naruto, but I doubt the Sand will like that. They may have been looking for you if you returned to the village and left again." Shikamaru shook some of the water out of his hair and rested his hands behind his head.

"I never went back." Gaara said plainly.

"You know they'll send out Hunter-nins to bring you back."

"Maybe I'll just leave the Sand village altogether…if there's still one to leave. And I doubt they'll be able to take me back by force." Gaara almost laughed at the thought. "I doubt they even want me back that much."

"So Gaara…" Iruka started. "What do you plan on doing after all of this is over? Assuming that we do fix all of this and everything returns to normal."

"…"

"Well, do you have any goals, interest, something you could consider perusing?"

"Well…" Sure he had thought about one thing that could fill one of those, he wasn't sure he wanted to talk about that through. "Not really." No one had trouble believing that.

"Well anyway, dose anyone have a clue of where we're going?" Lee asked, "This place might be running out of air."

"Last time I checked we were heading towards the Sand Village." Shikamaru said.

Lee looked towards Shikamaru. "Wasn't the Sand also wiped out by the storm?"

"I hope not, that's that only way I'll be able to get an hourglass." Gaara said.

"He's right, and we're not exactly sure the Sand was hit it's just a possibility because the storm came from the east." Iruka told them.

"If this tunnel is long enough we might just make it there with out any problems."


	12. Chapter 12: Errors

Chapter 12: Errors

They walked for exactly 5 hours, 5 long hours. The fire burned out after the first 30 minutes, so they'd been in the dark for 4 hours and 30 minute of that time. Not that it mattered especially, the passage was completely strait so they couldn't get lost.

It seemed the tunnel would never end and they'd be better off going back and trying get the entrance open. But eventually they saw light coming from the ceiling ahead of them. "Finally, A way out." Lee said relived, running towards the light.

He had squint from the brightness when he looked up at the sun shining brightly through the trees. Gaara stepped into the light with a sleeping Naruto in his arms, now that he could see he noticed how cute he looked. Naruto was curled up, his face buried in Gaara's chest and his arms folded. The boy stirred from the sudden flash of sunlight.

He rolled towards it, making Gaara almost drop him from the sudden movement but he managed to keep him in his arms. Naruto opened his eyes, met with the sight of Gaara surrounded by golden light. "I didn't know I fell asleep, sorry Gaara." Naruto said sleepily. They had stopped for a rest about 2 hours ago and Naruto fell asleep in his lap.

Gaara smiled at him and set him down. Now that he wasn't looking at Naruto, he had time to look around at his surroundings. This place looked strangely familiar…'This….this is where all of this started…this is where I found that hourglass.' Gaara thought, looking to the left and seeing that familiar shelf that the hourglass was originally on it.

"We're near the village of the sand." Gaara said,

Iruka had abandoned his crutches a while back, finding it easier to walk with out them now that he was feeling somewhat better. He walked into the sunlight and stood next to Gaara, "How do you know?" he asked.

"I recognize this hole, it's near where I was staying before I came to Konoha." Gaara jumped out of it, counting off all six feet from the passage to the surface just to make sure he was where he thought.

Iruka looked up, watching Shikamaru follow after Lee, Gaara and Naruto. 'I can make that." he said to himself, crouching a little and jumping to the top. He made the jump easily, it was the pain that came from landing that slow him down, but he was able ignored it until it dulled away.

The area used to be a forest, it was clear that the storm passed over this area. Every tree had been pulled out of ground, few remained in one piece and for the most part this place was nothing more then a pile of wood. "It's a shame…" Lee sighed, lifting one foot on to an over turned tree.

"This storm has already done too much irreversible damage, if it continuous the whole continent will be in danger." Shikamaru said, sitting next to Lee and resting his hands on his head.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked.

Lee looked back at him, "Look at this place, there's nothing left alive. With out the trees this place will become a desert. It's a shame, the same thing is going to happen to Konoha." He shook his head and looked around again, nothing survived.

"That's what we're trying to stop." Naruto stretched his arms above his head with a small yawn. "Now where do we go now?"

"That way."

Naruto jumped when Kakashi's voice came from behind him. "Stop doing that!" He shouted, holding his chest and breathing a little harder.

Gaara started walking in that direction, apparently he saw something ahead. After a few seconds he ran towards it, stopping near a particular piece of wood . He reached down, tossing away the stray debris and lifting up a door.

"What is it?" Naruto asked, standing over his shoulder.

"It's a door…from the cabin I was staying in. Tenmari and Kankurou were also here." Gaara dropped the door, looking around the other debris in the area, mainly to see if his brother and sister had stayed in the cabin during the storm. He honestly hoped they hadn't waited for him, there was a good chance they didn't know about the storm's true nature and decided to wait it out.

Naruto also started to look, he knew what Gaara was doing so he didn't ask questions. More and more wood from the cabin started to turn up among the ones from the trees, building and outline to where the pieces of the cabin had been carried by the storm. Nothing from the cabin showed out side of that border, nothing survived either.

Nothing except Gaara's gourd, it had been relatively protected by the sand inside and only managed to be moved a few feet from where Gaara's room stood. Not what he was looking for but it was a sign that may have confirmed his fear. If Tenmari and Kankurou left, there was a good chance that they would have taken the gourd with them.

"Relax, maybe they just forgot it when they left." Naruto said placing a hand on his shoulder. Gaara returned the gourd to his back and continued his search.

Shikamaru and Lee sat nearby, not knowing exactly what they were looking for so they stayed out of their way and used the time for well deserved rest. Iruka and Kakashi did the same, Iruka didn't help because Naruto wouldn't let him considering it still hurt to bend. And Kakashi watched over Iruka as he usually did.

After a half hour of searching, they turned up nothing, meaning Tenmari and Kankurou had made it out safely and probably headed for home. "Done yet?" Kakashi asked, laying in front of Iruka with one hand resting behind his head and the other holding a Come Come Paradise book.

"Yes." Gaara dusted himself off and stood to his feet.

"And I was just getting comfortable." Kakashi whined, folding the page he was on and closing the book until they got moving again. Shikamaru shook Lee lightly, seeing that the boy had fallen asleep on his shoulder.

Lee figured it was time to go, so he stood up and started walking in the direction he thought was the right way. After getting only 20 minutes of sleep, not including now, in the last 38 hours he couldn't wake up fully after falling asleep once. So right now he was on Auto-Pilot, walking in a state of half-sleep almost zombie like. Shikamaru grabbed him by his shoulders and turned him around in the opposite direction.

With a small grunt and half-lidded eyes, he guided his feet in the direction Shikamaru was turning him. Using all of that half-lidded vision to avoid wreckage.

After another hour of walking mindlessly through the barren land, the 6 reached the village of the Sand and found that it had been hit by the storm. Only not in a normal way, The storm had passed over the village…half of it. The left half just got strong winds and heavy rain because only the outer edge of the storm hit it

The right half had taken the full furry of it, a part of the eye even passed over it. Half of the storm passed over half the village, it was lucky in the most unlucky way.

"Whoa…" was the only thing Naruto could to say about it, it was quite a sight.

"So this was the only place that survived? " Shikamaru said, turning an even more out of it Lee towards the city gates.

"Looks that way." Iruka folded his arms and took one last glance over the village before following Shikamaru. It wouldn't be hard to get past them, considering that they had been completely destroyed. It was no use guarding them since no one would have the organization or the focus to attack right now.

They easily walked into the city gates, finding the damages to the part of the village that was still standing were minor. Nothing more then broken windows and things being tossed around somewhat. All of the cities efforts were being focused on search and rescue for the other part of town. Hopefully some on survived but odds were 90 of them stayed above ground and 90 of them died.

"It's a shame." Kakashi shook his head and put away his book, even he couldn't ignore the seriousness of the situation. It was hard to turn away from, and the mood was inescapable. Every couldn't help but be solemn, knowing the Leaf suffered far worse damages. Even though Konoha was completely destroyed, more of it's population survived because they knew the only way to survive was to stay underground. Right now it's numbers doubled the Sand's.

Gaara stopped at an old shop just ahead, through the broken window he could see it was an antique shop. Which of course carried different sized hour glasses, which he had no problem taking one. This store would go out of business soon any, the only ones that would survive was the ones selling food and the ones selling supplies. That was the only thing people needed right now.

He found one about the size of the one he had before right under the display case. Gaara was surprised that it had avoided damages but it was seemingly alright. Finding nothing wrong with it, he reached down over the window frame and picked it up. "I found one, let's go." He said promptly.

Everyone gathered around, placing their hands on his back and shoulder as he held the Hour glass outward and began shifting the sand. The familiar distortion and burring of their vision came, followed by being surrounded by rushing sand.

"Finally we can get this over with." Naruto sighed happily, sitting down next to Gaara and leaning against his leg.

Lee moved away from Gaara, sitting down near the wall of rushing sand and closing his eyes. Shikamaru stood near him, just to make sure he didn't fall back into the sand and drown in an extremely painful way.

"Nothing could possible go wrong this time." Naruto said.

A sudden cracking sound filled the air, centering from Gaara's Hourglass. It seemed that it hadn't escaped all damages during the storm, it had an extremely small crack. But because of the spinning and all of the Chakra being poured into the hourglass made it grow larger. And now nothing could stop it from….breaking.

The hourglass shattered, first sending a wave of sand outward that covered Gaara and Naruto. The glass was broken, but the frame was still spinning, and now it was like a vacuum. Pulling in all of the sand surrounding them along with Naruto and Gaara.

"What's happening!" Lee shouted, finding himself being pulled in.

"I don't know, but there's nothing we can do about it…" Shikamaru said tensely, watching Iruka and Kakashi being pulled in.


	13. Chapter 13: The more things change, the ...

Chapter 13: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

"…."

'…..'

Lee involuntarily coughed, the intense feeling of his chest burning sent his mind back in to awareness. Instead of air coming out he felt himself spiting out grainy sand that scratched his esophagus on the way up. His eye shot open and he wanted to cry in pain but his throat was too dry and full of sand. His vocal cords couldn't move at all.

Lee's eyes were greeted with the vision of Shikamaru above him, from where his hands were he could see that Shikamaru had just given him the Heimlich maneuver. "Don't try to talk, It will only hurt more." Shikamaru said, reaching over to a stream they were sitting next to and cuffing as much water as he could in his hands.

He brought the water to Lee's mouth, who gratefully slouched it around and cleared the sand out. Lee sat up, still coughing sand out of his lungs which wasn't good for his throat. He was in a valley under an extremely large hill that had a stream running through it. On the other side of the stream was a field of flowers stretching as far as his vision would let him see.

"What happened?" Lee's voice was scratchy at first, forcing him to clear out his throat.

"We drowned." Shikamaru climbed to his feet, shaking the sand off his clothing. They had literally drowned, but drowning in sand wasn't nearly easy as doing so in water. It was much more painful, extremely painful, and it was much harder to revive a person afterwords.

"Where is everyone else? Did they make it?" Lee looked around for any sign of some other person, finding none.

"I don't know, but we should probably go look around in case they're nearby." Shikamaru waited for Lee to stand up, "Dose anything hurt?" He asked, checking over the other boy.

Lee shook his head, "No, I'm fine."

They began the accent of the hill behind them, the slope proving harder to climb then either of them previously thought. Lee checked his equipment on the way up, holding up what he had left. "I guess this is all I have left." He said, holding up a signal Kunai.

Shikamaru lifted two Shuriken, "Everything else was lost."

They came to the top, finding it worth the climb since it was the only hill in the area. Giving the two a good view of everything in the surrounding region, which made them realize that they had no clue where they were.

Everything to the left was covered in flowers, leaving the right covered in short grass. No place like this existed near Konoha or the village of the sand. "Where could we possibly be?" Shikamaru said a low voice, almost to himself.

"Don't you mean when?" Lee asked.

"More so where, this isn't the same landscape as the Sand village. We didn't just move through time, we moved in position." Shikamaru sat down and folded his arms, trying to determine any place in his time that would have a landscape remotely similar to this.

"This may be why no one else is in the same spot, we could be completely separated in time and half way around the world from each other." Lee sighed and fell back, landing on the soft grass with a sense of hopelessness.

"That could be true, or they could be five minutes behind us and a mile away."

Lee looked over at Shikamaru with a raised eyebrow, "Is that optimism? From Shikamaru?" he said, a bit of fake dramatic surprise in his voice.

Shikamaru smirked, "You weren't your usual optimistic self, someone had to take over."

Lee laughed a little, "I wasn't _too bothersome_?" There was a mocking tone to Lee's voice when he said this, Shikamaru rolled his eyes and climbed on top of Lee.

"Hn, not really, I can't stand to see you act like that." When it came to Lee he was willing to do a lot of things he wouldn't normally do. He didn't have the will to the lazy with him…well sometimes he didn't.

Shikamaru stood up, extending a hand to Lee. "We should get going, if they are in the area we should look for them before they move."

Lee grabbed his hand and pulled himself up, seeing their first problem when it was time to leave. "Ok, which way do we go?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Then let's go east."

-

They could have gone in any possible direction, but after an hour or so Lee couldn't help but start wondering did he make the right choice. Everything seemed the same, showing no sighing of anything but open fields and wide plains. Shikamaru constantly reassured him it didn't matter which way he picked if they didn't know where they where or where they were going.

Each leap carried them farther east, sending them a few miles so far. It was enough for them to find a road.

"Concrete road with yellow dividers in the painted in the middle, We must be in the future." Shikamaru said calmly.

Lee got nervous, but at the same time excited. He was curious to see what the future held for the world, more importantly Konoha.

Shikamaru walked forward on the empty road, seeing that it was actually a hill. He stood at the point where the hill stopped running up hill and went down hill, giving him a view of a city that was in it's valley.

Both of them were truly amazed at the site, it was much larger then any city they'd ever seen before, it was almost surreal. They could see skyscrapers mainly around the center, huge structures clearly made of steel and large amounts of glass. Large roads similar to the one they were on lined every part of the city.

"Whoa…" Lee said, unable to believe what he was seeing.

"If that surprises you, look at that." Shikamaru point towards a sign just ahead at the entrance to the city, it read 'Welcome to Konoha, Population 2.3 million.' A large surprise considering the storm that wiped the village out completely who knows how long ago. It wasn't nearly a village anymore, it was a metropolis.

"Shall we go?" Shikamaru walked confidently towards the city with Lee trailing behind, still taking in the sights.

"Hey thick brows."

Both of them turned around, hearing the familiar voice of the only person that called Lee that. "Naruto?" Lee turned around expecting to see the hyperactive shinobi, and he did, only not in the way he expected.

Naruto seemed the same except for his clothing, he had on a pair of black pants with an orange shirt that had the Leaf's insignia on the center in black. On the back was the usual swirl insignia also in black. Who was he? "What are you doing here? I thought you had practice?" Naruto said.

"Huh?" Lee looked over him questioningly.

"I asked you if you could help me practice and you said you had to train for some competition with Gai." Naruto dropped a soccer ball he was holding toward the ground and bounced it in the air with his foot. "So what are you doing here, and what are you wearing?"

Shikamaru lent over and whispered to Lee, "This must be another Naruto in the future, It is strange though that he looks exactly the same."

"Uh? Huh?" Lee looked around confusedly, not know how to respond to this.

Shikamaru lent over and whispered to him again. "Were stranded here so we might as well get on people's good side." Shikamaru turned towards Naruto, "I don't think we're the people your looking for."

Naruto shrugged and looked over the two closely, "Are you Lee's brother? You two look exactly alike."

"It would have worked Sasuke!"

All three of them turned toward the city, hearing Konohamaru's voice and finding him coming this way with Sasuke trailing behind. Konohamaru was wearing the same thing Konohamaru wore in the past . Sasuke was wearing baggy black jeans with a silk blue button up shirt.

"Konohamaru." Sasuke said shaking his head.

"We can still practice it, quick! Throw me in the air!" Konohamaru said, turning to him and waiting to be picked up.

"No." Sasuke said, sounding a little worried.

"Why?" Konohamaru asked.

"Because I like you, I don't want you to die." Sasuke said jokingly, he froze when he saw Lee and Shikamaru.

Or more specifically what they had on. "Where did you get that?" Sasuke asked, pointing at their forehead protectors.

Naruto lent forward, "He wants want of them because Itachi has one."

"Don't mention him around me." Sasuke growled.

"What's the big deal, everyone has one." Lee said, realizing too late that what went for the past, didn't necessarily go that way for the future.

"Not really, there really rare artifacts from a long, loooong time ago. That is so cool!" Konohamaru said, tossing his book bag to some place nearby and walking after it. "Shikamaru, can you help me with my homework?"

Shikamaru looked down at him questioningly, not sure how much help he'd actually be seeing that he was extremely from extremely far back in the past. "What kind?"

"Math." Math he could do.

Naruto shrugged, "I guess I should get started to, if I miss more work Iruka's gonna kill me." The boy trudged over to where Konohamaru was sitting and retrieved his own book bag nearby. Sasuke walked past Lee and Shikamaru, sitting next to Naruto, though he still wanted an answer.

Naruto pulled out a history book from his book bag and opened it up to a page marked by a few sheets of paper. Sasuke looked towards Lee, seeing Shikamaru was with Konohamaru. "So, where did you get it?"

"Um…Well I earned it."

"Earned it how?"

Naruto interrupted, "Sasuke help me with question number 1. Do you know how many years ago it was when Konoha was destroyed by that storm."

Sasuke looked at him, "Are you serous? It's a holiday, they said it 5 times in class." It was still drawing a blank with him, Naruto had fallen asleep in class. "The holiday is today Dobe, 2000 years ago."

Lee and Shikamaru now knew how far ahead in the future they were, 2000 years was a long way to go.

"So how did you earn it?" Sasuke asked, still determined to find out where Lee got that forehead protector.

Lee sighed, 'What's the harm?' He thought to himself. "I got it in the past."

"Huh?"

"I'm not the Lee you think I am, and he's not the Shikamaru you think he is. We came from the 2000 years in the past."

Naruto looked up at him and laughed. "If your really from the past, then you could do my history homework." He said jokingly.

Shikamaru laid back on the hill, facing Konoha. "We probably could."

"You two lost it, don't encourage them dobe." Sasuke said folding his arms.

Naruto still went ahead with it, "Alright then, What's the name of the Third Hokage?"

"Sarutobi." Shikamaru answered.

"Who engineered Konoha Crash?"

"Orochimaru" Lee said.

"How was Jutsu used?"

It went on like that for 10 minutes, the two answering all of the questions with out error.

"Just because your good at history doesn't mean you from the past." Sasuke said, looking over Naruto's paper from over his shoulder.

"Well, I can use Chakra." Shikamaru said, noticing that during line of question no one used it anymore.

"Don't be stupid, It's been scientifically proven Chakra can't be used anymore. Don't embarrass yourself." Sasuke sat back down next to Naruto, watching Konohamaru who barley paying attention to the conversation and more involved in his homework.

"It's not a big deal." Shikamaru said, letting his hands come rest behind his head before for closing his eyes.

Lee looked over at him, "It might just help if you do show them."

Shikamaru shook his head. "It's too bothersome.

"I can only use Taijutsu so it has to be you." Lee said pleadingly. Konohamaru looked up at the exchange going on over his head

Shikamaru shrugged and stood up. "Just for you alright." He looked over at Naruto and Sasuke who were still watching him. "I'll prove it and use a Jutsu."

Sasuke snorted and looked on as Shikamaru did a few hand seals, "Shadow mimic no Jutsu!"

As soon as he said the words his shadow began to grow, extending outwards toward Naruto and Sasuke. It connected with theirs bring the two under his control.

"Wh-What's happening?" Naruto said nervously as his body picked it self up off the ground with out any orders from his mind.

"My jutsu uses your shadow to control you." Shikamaru raised his hand in the air, forcing Naruto and Sasuke to do the same.

"This…really is a Jutsu…" Sasuke said in realization, struggling as hard as he could to break it but with no use.

"You believe us now?" Lee said, watching Shikamaru release the Jutsu with his point made.

Konohamaru watched intrigued, thoughts brewing in his mind…

"I don't know what's more impossible, the fact that you can use Chakra and Jutsu, or that you really are from the past. Tsk, I guess you'd have to be to be able to use Chakra." Sasuke finally believed them, he'd seen stranger things.

"If your from the past, how did you get here?" Naruto asked, rubbing his arm with slight disbelief. He had an easier time believing it then Sasuke, he was the one that had the seal on his stomach. He knew strange things happened because of it, and sometimes he could feel something stirring inside of him, but he never told anyone about it. He always said it was just a scar, along with the claw marks on his face.

Not that anyone really asked, mostly everyone at school and in Konoha for that matter, seemed to hated him. The only ones who'd ever asked was Sasuke and Konohamaru, and he didn't tell them anything. He felt bad about not telling Sasuke though.

Lee started explaining the whole story, everything that happened including how they looked like just like the other Naruto, Sasuke and Konohamaru. Which spawned an argument between Sasuke and Naruto about something extremely trivial. They changed the subject of the argument a few times, so much that they, Naruto at lest, couldn't even remember how the argument started.

"That's be cause you're a loud mouth Dead-last!" Sasuke shouted, standing a few inches from Naruto's face.

"No way jerk, it's because your such an ass-hole!" Naruto shouted back, closing the gap by an inch.

"10 whole minutes, a new record." Konohamaru said, still looking down at his homework. Konohamaru was extremely good at splitting his attention, his mind could be thinking heavily about an issue and still hold a good conversation. In this case, finish math homework he barely knew how to do, and listen to Sasuke and Naruto argue.

Lee sighed, "I guess some things never change."

"Your so damn arrogant!" Naruto shouted.

"Your such an idiot!" Sasuke yelled.

Naruto looked down at his watch. "Sasuke, it's 4:00. Don't you have to go to that thing at the police academy?"

"Shit. Your right." Sasuke lent forward and gave Naruto a soft kiss before picking up his book bag and walking to the road.

"Sure I can't come?" Naruto said with a small whine in his voice.

"You wouldn't like it, it's boring." Sasuke gave a small wave as he walked down the hill. "Good bye Konohamaru."

"See ya Sasuke!" Konohamaru said, waving back with a lot more energy and getting a small laugh from Sasuke.

"Huh?" Lee looked around confusedly 'Naruto…and Sasuke? Is that possible?' Shikamaru just looked at it disregarding.

With his homework done and Sasuke gone, Konohamaru could finally ask what he really wanted. "Shikamaru, you from the past right….so…"


	14. Chapter 14: Seeing Double

Chapter 14: Seeing Double

"Gaara? Where are we?" Naruto said nervously looking around there surroundings. It was no one defendant place, constantly changing from to another location and landscape. Right now they appeared to be in a city, but their bodies seemed to be falling through the ground as if they standing on water, only it happened much slower. When the sank through all the way, their next surroundings became a forest."

"I don't know. We seem to be changing times." Gaara said.

"Any way we can stop?"

"Nothing I tried works." Gaara looked down at Naruto, the boy was holding his stomach. "What's wrong."

"Kyuubi…It feels like he's jumping around." Naruto said.

"How long has it felt like that?" Gaara asked.

"Just started."

"Has it ever felt like that before?"

"…Yeah, a few times." Naruto looked as if he just realize something "Like when something's about to happen…Whatever it is, it must be really bad because it never felt like this." Naruto could feel Kyuubi growling inside of him, it must have really been uneasy because his Chakra mixing subtly with Naruto's own, as if Kyuubi didn't realize he was doing it.

Naruto started to walk forward through the forest even as he fell downward, feeling a sudden spasm in Kyuubi and making Naruto hurt more. "It gets worse when I walk in this direction." He called back 'Stop it Damnit!' Naruto yelled in his head, though he did no good.

Gaara walked over to him, peering deeper into the forest. But by that time he'd sunk to low in to the ground to see anything. "Gaara! It just got a hell of a lot worse." Naruto fell to his knees, his body burning with Charka and a piercing pain from Kyuubi. Gaara wrapped his arms around Naruto's back and lifted him on to his feet.

'Stop it!' Naruto yelled in his head, finally getting some relief when Kyuubi realized he was inhibiting Naruto's movement. And this apparently wasn't the time for inhibiting movement.

Gaara looked down as soon as he got a view of the next surrounding's they were falling to. He was staring what appeared to be a grinning Nine-Tail's in the face, he jumped and Naruto let out a startled yell. It… looked like it was waiting for them, maybe it had been.

The fox lent forward attempting to bite Gaara but he jumped back and pulled Naruto with him. They were still falling so they had a slight advantage, The fox had to jump to reach them and it was easier to dodge something in the air then on the ground. They were heading in to another forest, that may have been a disadvantage to Naruto and Gaara though.

"What do we do now?" Naruto asked, taking a few steeps back.

"The only thing we can do." Gaara turned around, pulling Naruto's hand and began running. It looked a little strange because they we're running on air and Nine-Tails was jumping at them. But appearances was the least of their problems.

The Nine-Tails hit the ground and sprang toward them again, forcing Gaara to dive forward and out of it's path. The Fox reached outward, just barely managing to scratch him along his back before falling back down. When the demon touched him something strange started to happen, similar to when he went back and fourth through time.

The only way he could take someone with him was if they were touching him, once started that person went through time just the same as Gaara, they went to what time he went. The same went for Nine-Tails, now that the fox touched him it was also traveling through time with them. At lest until the found away to stop it.

At lest now they knew they were gong back in time.

"This is bad…" Gaara said, a fearful tone to his voice watching the Nine-Tail's growl at them.

"What happened?" Naruto asked. Gaara turned around and showed him the claw marks on his back. "No…this can't be happening!"

This time when the fell through the ground the Nine-Tail's came with them. Even stranger, they just returned to the forest they came from, now they were going forward in time. "What do we do?" Naruto asked.

"We can't fight it, the only thing we can do is try and get away from it."

Shikamaru looked towards Konohamaru, "Huh? What is it?"

"Can you teach me that Jutsu." He asked.

Shikamaru looked at him with a raised eyebrow, "You can't use Charka, and why do you want to learn it anyway?"

Konohamaru moved closer so that he could whisper in his ear. "It's kind of embarrassing but…I wanna use on Sasuke."

Now Shikamaru was confused, "Why would you want to use it on Sasuke?" They seemed to be pretty good friends, why would he want to use a Jutsu on him?

Konohamaru blushed, debating if he should really tell him or not. "Well…I uhh…"

Judging from his reaction and the impish grin on his face, Shikamaru could guess why he wanted to use it. "If you like Sasuke, using this Jutsu on him would be the wrong way to go."

Konohamaru rubbed his head, "Wow, you really are smart."

"Why don't you just tell him?" Shikamaru glanced over at Naruto who was talking with Lee, "Oh. Well a Jutsu would be too bothersome, and he might not like that to much anyway."

Konohamaru sighed, "I guess your right." He stood up and picked his book bag off the ground. "I better get going, my grandfather wants me to take this stupid class." Konohamaru sighed.

"And…who is your grandfather?" Shikamaru asked mainly out of curiosity, in the past Konohamaru's grandfather was dead. Here his grandfather may not have been the same person.

"He's the president."

He wasn't surprised at his grandfather's position, he was surprised to find that instead of being head of this city. He was head of a whole country, the Leaf had grown larger then Shikamaru had imagined. "What's the class about?"

"I don't know, the last one he made me take was about 'etiquette' and it was stupid." Konohamaru said, kicking the ground with annoyment. "Well, see ya later. And next time I wanna here more about the past." Konohamaru said, heading back toward the city.

"Why do you guys come all the way out here to meet?" Lee asked.

"I'm not sure, it was Sasuke's idea at first, then we just kept doing it." Naruto told him, preparing to leave himself. "You guy wanna come with me?"

Sasuke walked in the long steeps to Konoha's police department, a large building about 6 stories high. Instead of the steel structures like most buildings it's size, it was made of gray brick with a large clock at the top. He slipped past a few exiting people as he walked through the glass doors in to the lobby, hoping that he'd be gone before anyone recognized him or had time to say something to him.

The first floor of the department was mainly the lobby and a conference rooms, one in particular for the press. The second floor was the actual police department where the offices actually worked, it was a lot of cubical offices and the locker rooms with showers. The third floor was weapons based, the armory, the shooting range as well as the physical training rooms and the gym were set up there.

The fourth floor was forensics, the best forensics laboratory in all of the Leaf and also the smallest. Fittingly above the forensics department on the fifth floor was the what was basically where every case was solved, close, filed and stored. Mainly where Detectives and people of that nature resided. The final and sixth floor was unknown to Sasuke, since he'd never been up there. But he did know the chef of police's office was there.

Sasuke hurried his steps, knowing every person here knew him. If he heard one more thing about him following Itachi's footsteps, he would scream.

He walked down the long hallway filled with conference rooms, glancing into the ones with the door's open as he made his way to the center of the corridor. Sasuke paused and took a deep breath as he came to the room, 'I have to do this…'

He opened the double doors and walked into the room, finding it was nearly full. The room was shaped like a classroom, and it had to hold about 50 people plus those leaning against the wall. Hatake Kakashi was standing at the head of the room, he use to be a member of the S.W.A.T team and former captain of the Bomb squad. Now he was a teacher from time to time.

Not often though, no one really knew what he did when he wasn't teaching, which created some rumor. Especially since his face was covered by the collar of his sweater and no one had seen under it, quite the mysterious one.

"Alright then, since just about everyone is here we can start. All of you passed in the police academy qualifying to be regular officers. I assume that if you're here you whish to go the next level. That being the Bomb Squad or the S.W.A.T or using one of those options as a stepping stone to enter the Leaf's special forces.

This wont be a long process, You have to go through 8 weeks of training in two days. If your strong enough you can pass on into your unit by Wednesday, and it starts now. Your first test is a written one, you have 25 minutes to complete 80 questions." Kakashi pulled a stack of papers off the desk and passed a few down each row.

With that done he sat down at the desk, putting his feet up and resting his hands behind his head. Watching each one of candidates take the test, he knew 60 of the questions were complete BS. They wouldn't be graded for that, instead he was closely watching there reactions and waiting to see who would actually finish when most of the questions were made to distract

Konoha was only excepting the best, even if they were young.

Sasuke looked at the paper, it was multiple choice, he was thankful for that.

Lee looked around in amazement as Naruto lead them to his apartment. "So what are you going to do?"

"There's nothing we can do, it's out of our hands. The only thing we can do is wait and see if Gaara will come back for us." Shikamaru said.

"…But it doesn't look like likely that he'll come, he doesn't even know what time where in. So it looks like we maybe here permanently." Lee sighed.

"I could see why, you probably want to see if you friends are alright." Naruto said, stopping and leaning on a pole while he waited to cross the street. "If you ended up here, then they're probably someplace safe too." Naruto said.

"Yeah, your right…" Lee shrugged, chances were they were alright.

Naruto lead them a few blocks to his apartment, unlocking the door and throwing his keys on the table. It was small, but enough for Naruto though most of the time he wasn't alone. Sasuke stayed with him most of the time, he never went back to his house unless he had to. They could even see some of his things mixed in with Naruto.

Like clothing, Naruto's were bright, light colors. Sasuke's were dark, muted colors and it was easy to distinguish them apart even though they were mixed together.

"I know where this place is now, I'm going to look around." Lee said, obviously thinking.

"I'll catch up with you." Shikamaru said.

"Alright, just don't get lost." Naruto called out, falling face first on to his bed. He was going to take a nap then go see how Sasuke was doing.

Sasuke managed to keep his cool expression through the whole test, though most of the questions went over his head and he had to go on instinct. He couldn't help but thinking, through this whole thing that he knew absolutely nothing, and wondered did Itachi have the same problem when he took this test.

Kakashi got up from his desk and began collecting and grading every paper personally…on the spot. He stopped at the first candidate, glancing over his paper for about 2 seconds. "You fail." He said plainly, collecting the next person's paper. From his eyes you could tell he was smiling when he looked at the second candidate. "Not bad, you pass."

It was about 2 more minutes until he reached Sasuke, most about 90 of them failed up to that point, and Sasuke was at the very back. Kakashi looked at him for a second then down at his paper, "You got everything right, Not bad." Kakashi moved on and Sasuke smirked, he didn't think he'd make it.

When it was all said in done 9 people out of 65 passed, Konoha only let the best in and that was apparent from the beginning.

With the test done, Kakashi led the 9 of them up to the third floor.

-

Lee was confident he could remember where Naruto's apartment was, it wasn't that hard when he thought about it. Lee always had a good sense of direction and could find his way around, this would be the greatest test of that skill.

"This place is amazing! I wonder if they still use the same currency?" Lee looked around at all of the stores and people, all of them different. "This place look's interesting." He looked up at a Movie theater, reading the move titles with interest.

"Lee, you must be amazingly fast."

Lee's eye's widened when he heard a familiar voice. "Sensei?" He turned around to see Gai standing with a surprised look on his face. He was wearing a green shirt with blue jeans, not a look that strayed far from how he looked in the past.

"I thought you had to go home and pick something up, and you changed clothes. Your really progressing especially in speed." Gai said.

"But Sensei, I'm not-"

"Sensei!"

Both of them looked over at…Lee? He was wearing a green sweater and green pants along with an orange armband on his left wrist. Gai looked at the Lee from the present and the Lee from the past with a raised eyebrow. Even though he came a few seconds latter, Gai had to admit his speed was still pretty fast.

Both Lee's looked at each other. "Your…Me? How?" The Lee from the present looked over the Lee from the past.

Lee rubbed his head, "How do I explain this…"


	15. Chapter 15: Death in the family

Chapter 15: Death in the family

Sarutobi looked around his office while the man in front of him put some files away in a briefcase. "That's about everything on this matter Mr. President." The man said.

Sarutobi nodded and set down the pin in his hand, sitting back and relaxing a little. "How's Konohamaru doing?" He had people follow Konohamaru from time to time, being the President's Grandson always put him in a reasonable amount of danger. Mainly he did it to keep him out of trouble, Konohamaru could get in a reasonable amount very easily.

Konohamaru didn't seem to think so, he knew his Grandfather had people watch him from time to time. And when he realized it was one of those times he did just about anything he could to lose them, he'd actually become pretty good at watching his back and evading .

"He's alright, still mainly staying around Uchiha Sasuke." The man told him, he was one of president's main escort and was in charge of trailing Konohamaru.

"Good to hear." Sarutobi nodded agreeingly, dismissing the man.

Just the man left another man walked in, Sarutobi could tell something was wrong by the solemn expression on his face. "Mr. President…I have some bad news."

Sarutobi stood up from his desk, looking at the man curiously "What is it?"

"Your Son and Daughter in-law….they were killed."

Sarutobi's eyes went wide in shock, but his expression quickly changed back to normal and he lowered his head. "What happened?"

"They were killed in the line of duty." Sarutobi's son was a Commander in Leaf's army, a decorated officer in the war the Leaf was currently having with the Sound, it had been going on for a few year's now.

His son's wife was volunteering as a communication's officer at the base they were stationed in, She was the person that got the information out about there base being over taken. So reinforcements got there in to time reclaim it from Sound's forces call their reinforcements, but not before irreparable damage was done.

"…Find Konohamaru and bring him back to me. I want to be the one to tell him." Sarutobi said, sitting back down at his desk and resting his head in his hands.

Sasuke closed one eye, taking aim at the target at the very back of the shooting range. It was 400 yards away with dim lighting, other's had problems but the Uchiha family always had sharp eyesight. Sasuke fired one round with the standard issue 9mm, he tried again but he quickly found that it only had one round in the magazine. Yet another one of Kakashi's surprises, nothing was what it seemed so far.

The lights returned to normal and the target sheet was pulled back towards Sasuke's booth by a track. He hit the outer ring of the bull's eye, close but not quite. Good enough to pass anyway, which Sasuke was thankful for.

"Not bad." Kakashi said, looking over the nine candidates with and obvious smile showing in his eyes.

"What the hell happened to the rest of my bullets?" Sasuke asked, pulling the magazine out of the gun and setting them down on the table behind him separately.

"You have to be ready for the unexpected." Kakashi pulled a remote out from his pocket and pointed it towards the very end of the shooting range. When he pressed a button the back wall started to retract into a larger room while the booths that separated each person was pulled into the ceiling by a lift.

"This time you'll be tested on moving targets, and guess who's lucky number one?" Kakashi pulled a black bullet proof vest out of a cabinet and tossed it to Sasuke, along with an M4A1 machine gun. Sasuke put on the vest, wondering why he would need it of this was only the entrance exam.

"These targets fire back, and through you wont be actually shot, the vest will give you a mild shock every time your hit." Kakashi explained, pushing Sasuke in to the range and pressing a button that dropped down a wall of bullet proof glass from the ceiling.

There was nothing here, making Sasuke question the nature of this test. But he stayed on guard anyway knowing Kakashi was just waiting for the perfect moment to- Sasuke turned around abruptly when he heard something slide down from the ceiling. It was a mechanical dummy with an M4A1 in it's hands.

Sasuke opened fire, firing 4 bullets into it's chest. Just about as soon he'd finished that one off he heard another one drop down about 10 feet behind him. Sasuke dived to the side when he heard it open fire, rolling on to his knees and pulled the trigger.

This time nothing happened, 'Damnit Kakashi!' Sasuke tossed empty riffle at the mechanical dummy to distract it while he ran toward the first one he'd taken out. Crouching slight, he picked up it's gun and turned it on the machine, disabling it wit two shots to the head.

Sasuke looked towards Kakashi with a angry glare, switching the gun from Automatic to Semi-automatic to save ammo. A small sliding sound snapped him back into alertness, it came from his side, a panel in the wall slid open and revealed another machine that started firing as soon as it had an unobstructed view. He had just enough time to fall to the ground and roll to the side, sending 3 shot's into it's stomach and one into the arm with the gun.

Sasuke used his free hand to lift himself on to his feet, looking around the now silent room. It seemed to be over…Until Sasuke felt a strong shock in his arm, much stronger then Kakashi had described it to be. Sasuke's left hand fell from the gun and he turned quickly towards the direction of the shot. It came from machine in the same side panel as the one before and Sasuke obviously didn't expect it.

Sasuke grunted and rolled to the side, firing while he rolled and somehow hit the machine in the neck. But unfortunately he felt a line of shocks along his back soon after, he'd been hit by another machine behind him.

Kakashi pressed another button on his remote to stop the machines and raise the glass separating Sasuke. "You pass, and I like that roll and shoot thing you did." Kakashi pulled him up with another smile hidden below his collar.

"This is so depressing…you shouldn't have to choice between your both of your son's life. That's just wrong." Lee said, reaching into a the bucket of popcorn sitting in the other Lee's lap.

"This so confusing…which one of you is my Lee?" Gai asked.

The Lee sitting next to the one with the popcorn raised his hand, his eyes still on the movie screen in front of him. "Hmm…." Gai moved in-between them so he could keep better track of who was who, the one on his left was from the present and the one on the right was from the past.

"So your really from the past?" Gai found a hard time believing it, but he also had a hard time not believing it considering it did come from Lee. "You do act like it…and you do have the forehead protector….Let me see that."

Lee untied it from his waist and handed it to Gai who looked over it closely, tapping it a few times with his finger. "It's real alright, this type of alloy doesn't exist anymore except in these old forehead protectors. And it's so shiny and clean, nothing that's been burred for 2 millenniums could be in such good condition. you must be telling the truth."

"Gai-Sensei, why isn't there any more of it?" Lee asked, tying it back around his waist.

"Good question Lee. People use to refine Konoha's land for this like metal alloy, but the fact of the matter is that the storm that destroyed Konoha 2000 year's ago destroyed the land and turned it a lake. So it didn't form anymore because the conditions weren't right." The lake the storm created turned into a storm.

"You know, that's worth a lot of money." The Lee from the present said.

"Nah, I think I'll keep it. I had to work hard to get this and I don't want to give it up that easily." Lee told him.

"This is great, now I have two of my favorite students." Gai said with an extremely happy smile on his face.

Konohamaru sighed as he looked back, he obviously didn't go to his class because he didn't want to spend another 5 hours sitting through that. 'Great, Grandpa must have sent them to bring me back.' Konohamaru sighed. Once again he saw the familiar men in the black suits led by the President's chief of security. They weren't even being inconspicuous, in fact it'd be pretty hard not to see them walking down the street.

"Konohamaru! We've been looking all over for you." The man walked up to Konohamaru while the other four waited a few feet behind him.

"No! Your not taking me back this time Ebisu." Konohamaru shouted. "Every time I go someplace I have to be followed! Not this time!"

Ebisu wasn't trying to argue this time, even though he knew Konohamaru was right he usually tried to convince him otherwise to make his job easier. The situation didn't call for that, "Konohamaru please…Your Grandfather has to tell you something very important."

Konohamaru shook his head, "I'm not. Going. Back!" He turned and took off running in the opposite direction.

"Konohamaru! Damnit!" Ebisu waved the other men after him and perused, but they did run into problems, like rush hour in downtown Konoha. Which meant a lot of traffic on the road and on the sidewalk, Konohamaru had a much easier time slipping through the people.

Konohamaru moved easily in-between the pedestrians, turning into an ally and jumping behind a dumpster. The boy quietly peeked from behind it, watching the men move past the ally and away from him. "Heh Heh."

"Konohamaru!"

Konohamaru looked up and saw Ebisu standing right above him, with a startled yelp Konohamaru started running again. Ebisu reached out and tried to grab his scarf but Konohamaru just barely got out of range, heading fore the fence at the end of the ally since Ebisu was blocking the entrance.

"Not today!" Konohamaru dived…tripped and fell to the ground just as Ebisu reached for him again. But started rolling as soon as he was down, slipping under a small hole in the bottom of the tall chain link and leaving Ebisu on the other side.

But that didn't slow him down much, Ebisu took a step back and jumped at the fence. Kicking off of it and bouncing to the right wall then kicking off that to the other side of the fence in one fluid motion.

"Whaaaa!" Konohamaru hadn't expected this, he didn't even have enough time to get up before the guard was already above him. The boy kept rolling because it was the only action he had time to take, But he ended up accidentally falling into the basement window of the store on this side of the alley. "Owwww…."

"Konohamaru, are you alright?" Ebisu knelt down by the window, finding it was too small for him to slip through. He had to say, Konohamaru kept his job….interesting, you never knew what would happen with him.

"I'm fine-I mean, you wont catch me this time!" Ebisu could hear Konohamaru's fleeing footsteps, which way did he go, to the front of back door?

50/50 chance, it was time to take a risk. "I say…front door!" Ebisu ran out of the ally, running into what was apparently a restaurant…with no sign of Konohamaru what's so ever. "Damn!" Ebisu ran out of the restaurant, going in to the ally and jumping the fence that stood next to the back door.

Once again, nothing. "Great! Where did he disappear to?" Ebisu shook his head and ran out of the alley to search the streets.

Konohamaru stood at the only place he knew Ebisu wouldn't look, an that was at Naruto's doorstep. Ebisu absolutely hated Naruto like most other people in Konoha, he would never think to come here. Konohamaru knocked on the door with a small snicker.

Shikamaru opened it tiredly, he'd apparently fallen asleep and the only the only reason he'd answered was because Naruto prompted him . "Konohamaru?"

"I need to hide out here until Ebisu leaves me alone." Konohamaru said, walking in to Naruto's apartment and into the bed room.

"Who is that?" Shikamaru asked.

Naruto stirred and rolled over with a small yawn, "The president's head of personal security, he's always trying to bring Konohamaru back to his Grandfather for one reason or another." The boy sat up, fixing his shirt and scratching his head some.

Konohamaru picked up a remote from it's usual place on Naruto's dresser and turning on the TV at the head of the room next to the door. The first channel it came to was showing news, Konohamaru was about to turn when one word caught his attention, President.

He decide to watch at lest for a moment.

Naruto and Shikamaru stood over Konohamaru's shoulder as the news was announced to the public. The words were that the President's son and his wife were killed in the line of duty, as soon as Konohamaru heard that…

"Mom…Dad? They…couldn't be." Konohamaru fell silent as the details of what happened were revealed, Konohamaru's face dropping even more with each word. More and more until finally Konohamaru buried his face in his hands.

"Konohamaru…." Naruto placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, but all it seemed to do was make the silent sobs become louder. 'Damn… Sasuke could make him feel better, but he's not going to be back until tomorrow…'

Naruto hugged the boy softly "It's alright…." he said softly. Konohamaru's sobs became a little louder as he turned and burred his face into Naruto's chest, holding him around the waist tightly.


	16. Chapter 16: Faded Pictures in a broken g...

Chapter 16: Faded Pictures in a broken glass

It was the next morning. Lee…not exactly sure which one, called from Lee's house and said he'd stay over and be back in the morning so Shikamaru wasn't too worried. Sasuke stayed at the Police department overnight, little did he know it was Kakashi testing them on reaction time by waking them up in the middle of the night and giving orders.

Konohamaru curled a little closer to Naruto, looking out steadily out of window with half-lidded eyes. Naruto was behind him with his arms wrapped around him sleeping peacefully, they'd fallen asleep that way because Konohamaru managed to cry himself to sleep last night and had a tight hold on Naruto. Instead of pulling him off and waking him up Naruto allowed himself to fall asleep in this position.

Shikamaru had fallen asleep at the side of the bed, his back resting against it and his head on the mattress. Hearing Konohamaru stir and feeling the soft vibrations under his head managed to wake him up. "Konohamaru?" Shikamaru called out blindly.

"Huh?" Konohamaru said sleepily, not moving and inch from the comfortable spot.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah…I'm ok. I can't believe I cried all day yesterday…"

"I can." Naruto said, letting go of Konohamaru and rolling from his side on to his back. "Your parent's died and you had to find out through the TV at the same time as everyone else in Konoha."

Konohamaru shook his head, "Shouldn't have cried like that."

Naruto opened his eyes and looked towards the boy, "Why not?"

"Because…I…"

"You want to be like Sasuke?" Shikamaru interrupted.

"Well…he never cried and he's strong and cool. He turned out great." Konohamaru said.

Naruto snorted, "Is that what you think? First, he only acted like that only since _you_ could remember. And he's not like that all of the time. Second, He cried a lot." Naruto's voice became solemn when he said the last part.

Konohamaru turned towards him, "No way." Konohamaru seriously didn't believe him.

Looked like Naruto would have to show him, He climb off the bed and walked over to his dresser. Going into the second drawer from the top and reaching under his cloths on the left side. He pulled out a picture and handed it to Konohamaru, it was of Naruto and Sasuke, only they were a little younger then Konohamaru was. Sasuke looked angry and sad while Naruto had his arm over his shoulder apparently trying to cheer him up.

"Huh? When was this?"

"A few years ago."

"Why dose Sasuke look so sad?"

"It's a long story."

"I wanna here it." Konohamaru sat up.

"Alright…"

A young Sasuke no more then 5 or 6 walked up the lawn the Uchiha a mansion, book bag and hand as he traveled up the stairway and opened the large oak doors into the foyer. A large room with two stairways along the left and right wall leading up to a balcony that connected to the hallway on the second floor. Strait ahead under the balcony was a small hall, closet on the left wall and a bathroom on the right, leading to the living room.

The floors were white marble with red carpet, matching white furniture surrounding a coffee table in front of a 64' plasma TV mounted on the wall. All under an elegant chandler that had to cost at lest 10,00 dollars, the Uchiha family was a prosperous one.

It was his countless consecutive day at military school, where all of Konoha's young hopefuls went in an attempt to become apart of the Leaf's army force. Where Itachi had gone and graduated from with in a year and who was currently working on raising from the Konoha's S.W.A.T team into the Special Forces where the best of all of the Leaf resided. To climb up the ranks and become on of the best, but the climb was a tough and tedious one that Sasuke was ready to embark on.

Sasuke dropped his book bag on the couch, walking past his father's study which was connected to the living room. The sound of his father's voice made him stop and intrigued to listen.

"I'm proud of you, you've gotten this far since becoming apart of the S.W.A.T team. Tomorrow you have a special mission, if you pass this you will be officially enlisted in the Leaf's special forces."

Sasuke smirked at his brother's accomplishments, he wanted to be just like him. To gain the attention and approval he received from everyone else and most importantly his parents. To them, Sasuke was just someone on the side, their main focus was Itachi. He didn't mind so much mainly because how close he was to his brother, even if Itachi was the king of procrastination.

It was always "Maybe next time Sasuke." along with a poke on the head. Sasuke found himself sub consciously rubbing that same spot on his forehead.

"And that's why I've decided to go with you, Our mission will become an important event for our Family." Itachi's mission quickly became his father's with those simple words. Itachi's mind was at work…. "So what are the details of the mission?"

There was a short silence, "Well, I can't say…it's an absolutely secret mission."

There was another small pause, "Itachi. You're the backbone that connects this family to the village, you have to be a useful connection. You understand that, _right?_" Sasuke didn't understand the nature of father's sudden firmness when Itachi told him the mission couldn't be discussed. But he thought nothing of it, there was always a conversation like this between Itachi and his father.

"Yeah."

Sasuke shrugged and moved on, he had a big test tomorrow.

Sasuke arrived on time at school as usual, taking his seat and unpacking his things. As most everywhere he went, he heard other's talking about him behind his back. He heard the voice of a young girl but didn't turn around when she said his name because he knew she was talking to someone next to her.

"Sasuke is Itachi's brother right, He's probably really cool just like his brother."

"Yeah he's so awesome, and cute!"

It always went like that, girls absolutely loved him and hung off everything he said no matter what it was. The guys looked up and adored him, and the teachers loved him because he was Itachi's brother. He hated it, it was so annoying.

The bell started ringing just as a boy walked in, none other then Naruto who opened the door to find the Teacher standing there with her arms folded. "Why am I not surprised your late?" The woman said annoyedly. Naruto wasn't actually late, he'd came in just as the bell rang, soaking wet from having to walk in the rain.

"Huh! I wasn't late!" Naruto shouted, wiping the water from his forehead with his arm.

"Take your seat before you cause anymore disruptions." The woman said, Naruto only quietly walked past here, from his seat at the front of the class Sasuke could see an angry look on his downcast face. But he could also see him frantically tying to hide that emotion while he held his head down, hiding whatever he was feeling behind a casual grin before lifting it again.

Once again he heard the two girls behind him start talking.

"Naruto is such an idiot, he always has that stupid look on his face."

"Yeah, I hate that loser."

Why everyone hated him was unknown, all of the adults seemed to and they gave that same hate to their kids. Everyone encouraged their kids to stay way from him, in fact they forced them to. Including Sasuke who also didn't particularly like Naruto, his parents said "You're an Uchiha, you shouldn't be associating with some one like him."

Naruto was the only person that wasn't impressed with him, he didn't hang off every word or particularly like him back. But watching him walk past he couldn't help thinking how bad his life was. Sasuke realized that no feelings of annoyment or slight neglect could ever compare to anything Naruto must have felt every day.

Sasuke was so busy thinking that he didn't notice the teacher had pass out report cards for the third quarter.

Strategy: A

Math: A

Science: A

English: A

Long-range Combat: A (Think of it as Jutsu, only with weapons instead)

Close-range Combat: A (Basically Taijutsu)

Team: A

With an impatient anxiousness Sasuke walked into his father's study where the man usually resided.. "Father." He called out, the man turned around from his desk.

"What is it Sasuke?"

Sasuke handed him his report card, waiting silently as his Father read over it. The man looked down at the paper then glanced up at him with a small smile on his face. "Keep this up and become a fine officer like your brother."

"…." Not exactly the reaction he was hoping for, but one he was starting to expect. why was every thing about him some how associated with Itachi? No one gave him no other notice then wanting him to live up to Itachi's skill or because he was an Uchiha.

Sasuke arrived at the same time the next day, noting that it was still raining. Taking his seat he silently watched the teacher get ready for today's class and the other student's talk among themselves. He didn't usually elect talk with his other classmates because it was always the same thing every time he did. The girls did nothing but agree with everything he said because he was an Uchiha as if they were incapably of holding their own thoughts, ideas and opinions around him. And the boys just asked about Itachi.

Naruto walked through the door with a small sense of triumph by making it on time for once. He may have been soaking wet but he didn't care, he seemed to be having a good day. Instead of that usual grin was an actual smile.

Naruto walked past Sasuke just as the girl behind him was going to the front of the class, looking down at a paper and not watching where she was going she bumped into Naruto even though the boy tried to avoid her. "Hey! Watch where your going wet idiot!" The girl yelled.

"What! You bumped in to me!" Naruto shouted back.

"You got my new dress wet."

"No, _You_ got your new dress wet, this was your fault not mine. Deal with it!" Naruto ignored her and kept walking, only to almost run into the teacher standing there with her arms folded.

"Naruto, it would be like you to lie over something so small even when everyone saw you."

"Wha! She ran in to me, I tried to get out the way!"

The teacher shook her head, "And you still continue to lie." She walked over to the person sitting opposite of Sasuke. "Now tell me who ran in to whom?"

The boy of course pointed to Naruto even though he saw other wise, "Naruto ran in to her."

"I want you to apologize for getting her wet."

Naruto shook his head in anger, "NO WAY!"

"Fine, you have a detention. Do you want to apologize to her now or should we go for two?" The teacher said with a small smirk on her face.

Naruto turned away with a some slight grumbling, "I'm sorry for running into you."

"No, A complete apology." The teacher said.

"I'm sorry for running into you…and…lying about it." Naruto said, holding his head down. And just that quickly his good day was ruined.

"Now apologize to the class for the disruption and taking time way from people who actually want to learn." The Teacher had a full smile on her face now, she was just kicking him while he was down now. She seemed completely contempt to ruin any happiness Naruto was having, and then rub it in.

Naruto sighed, "I'm sorry for wasting the _class's_ time."

By the time school was over it was raining again, hard, he was supposed to be getting picked up but no one came. He waited for 20 minutes and no one showed up, deciding to give it 2 more minutes, Sasuke watched his other classmates leave. All of his other classmates had left and he was the only one still here, waiting on the front steps of the school.

All had left except for Naruto, who walked out of the school at that moment after a detention. He seemed to get one everyday for one reason or another so he seemed used to it.

Naruto looked up at the sky, his expression becoming increasingly aggravated as he started to walk home. Compared to Naruto, Sasuke lived relatively close so it wasn't too much of a walk only 3 miles or so. Naruto had to walk a lot farther.

If Naruto could do it everyday regardless of rain or any other weather, Sasuke figured he could do it and should stop waiting. With that Sasuke got up and started walking in the opposite direction, wondering what could have happened to his ride. He wouldn't be surprised if his parents had forgotten, but it was better to have parents that forget then to have none at all.

With his hands in his pocket burred in his pockets Sasuke walked toward his home, noticing that the sound of people faded when he got to a curtain point. In fact he hadn't even heard or seen a car in the last 10 minutes. So when he saw a black truck in the middle of the road he of course looked into it.

"They're…Dead!" He saw two people in the car laying dead across each other with a shot to the head. Even worse he recognized them, his Grandmother and Grandfather. "Wha-What happened!"

Sasuke backed away from the car, looking around frantically for anyone else besides him.

He only saw another person laying dead on the ground, it was his uncle with a similar wound. "No! What's going on?" Sasuke kept looking around for anyone, who wasn't dead. All he came up with was more and more family members.

He stopped when heard a familiar sound in an alley…


	17. Chapter 17: Faded pictures in a broken ...

Chapter 17: Faded pictures in a broken glass part 2

"This…Can't be happening…" Sasuke said to himself, dashing towards the sound, hoping for any signs of life in the neighborhood where his family lived. He heard gunshots, and the distant sound of some one talking…

The alley was only a path between the two surrounding buildings, it lead behind them to what seemed to be a construction area. The ground was nothing but dirt bulldozed flat and devoid of anything else. It was only a few feet until Sasuke ran in to a chain link fence with barbwire on the top meant to keep others out. Which didn't do a good job considering that it looked as if a hole had been ripped open in the part he was standing in front of.

Sasuke slipped through, finding more dead on the other side, morel of the police force which was composed mainly of the Uchiha family anyway. "No…No!" Sasuke knelt down by one of the bodies, identifying each family member and confirming each to be dead. He was way past scared…terrified didn't do the fear he was feeling justice.

The sounds of voices grew louder as he moved closer to the area of construction, a building with a 10 story frame but only two stories built. The steel was covered in wood and drywall that surrounded the first floor blocking any view of what was inside. Sasuke pressed his body against the wall, listening closer to the familiar voices…of his father and Itachi.

"You've abandoned your duties, you've forsaken and betrayed your family!" His father yelled. Gunshots could be heard after that from both sides.

"Dad! Brother!" Sasuke screamed, dashing towards the door only a few feet away.

He heard Itachi's voice as he rammed the…locked door. "Sasuke, don't come in…" Sasuke didn't listen, instead he rammed the door open and stumbled inside of the dimly lit first floor. It was a large room considering no walls had be put up, the blue glow from a street light outside was just barely enough for Sasuke to see what had happened.

"No! Mother!" Sasuke ran to his mother's body laying a few feet ahead in pool of blood with a shot to the head. "Fa-Father!" Seeing that his mother was dead, he ran forward to his father just a foot or two away from his mother. He had been shot in the hart….

And in front of all of them he could see Itachi, his face covered in the shadows of the room. "Why?" Sasuke yelled, looking towards his brother with confusion. "Why did you kill everybody?"

Itachi stood there, only looking at Sasuke for a moment. "I told you not to come in." Itachi raised his gun, an unusually modified M4A1 that had what appeared to be a highly insulated fuel tank equipped behind the barrel, a set up that appeared to be a flamethrower. Why all of the isolation was needed could easily be seen, a large sliver battery back was attached to the top of the gun with a long rod that lay just above the barrel, it spilt into two rods at the tip. What appeared to be a volt gun.

He fired a few shots above Sasuke's head, the door could be heard slamming shut behind them. Sasuke looked back nervously. "You murdered them!" he shouted, that confusion and uncertainty turning into a blind furry.

"They were…a measurement to my skills, I needed to see how strong I'd become…"

"You…killed them for that!….The lives of our family was for that?" Sasuke felt his body begin to tremble and his eyes water. "What the fuck!" Sasuke reached down and took hold of his father's hand gun next to the body, but before he could even lift it he felt a sharp blow to his stomach. Forcing him to drop the gun and fall to his knee's clinched in pain.

Anger started to pull away some, letting the fear return stronger then ever when his brother picked him up off the ground by his shirt collar. Itachi threw him with all his strength, sending his small body soaring through the air, busting through the door of the building and sliding to a stop in the mud outside. "AAAHHH!" Sasuke held his body, feeling the worst pain on his back.

"I'm…scared…" Sasuke mumbled fearfully, stumbling on to his feet by holding on to the plow of a nearby bulldozer. He watched Itachi emerge from the building and coming towards him. "D-don't kill me." He said pleadingly as Itachi picked him up by his neck.

"So, what happened after that?" Konohamaru asked.

"I'm not sure…uh…well." Naruto rubbed his head nervously.

Shikamaru sighed "Then go to the next part you do know."

!  
!

Naruto lifted his arm to his forehead and wiped the water from his eyes, he smirked a bit. Despite how the day started it turned out alright. Today was when he first met Iruka, who had managed to save his last bit of sanity by treating him to some ramen. He had literally saved his last bit of sanity because he felt himself on the verge of finally losing it after 7 years of a completely miserably life.

After that small act of kindness, nothing could possibly ruin his day or week for that matter.

Naruto lowered his hand, turning the corner and coming that much closer to his home, but he quickly jumped back as a badly limping Sasuke finally fell to the ground in front of him. "Huh?" Naruto knelt down next to him in mild confusion, flinching from a loud roll of thunder in the sky. "Hey! Are you ok?"

Only loud sobs could be heard from Sasuke as he struggled to get up, but fell back down on his face and cried louder. Naruto rolled him over on to his back, "What happened to you?" He asked, once again not getting a response for Sasuke who didn't seem to be paying attention, almost as if he was in a daze. "Damn."

Naruto lifted him up, wrapping Sasuke's arm around his shoulder and attempting to move him someplace else. He got some help from Sasuke who tried to walk even though he didn't know where Naruto was leading him, he didn't care at that point as long as he was as far away from everything that happened as he could get.

Naruto kicked his door open with his foot after the awkward process of unlocking it with Sasuke barely conscious in his arms. After a much harder walk in the rain, Naruto managed to lay Sasuke down on his bed. "What happened to you?"

Sasuke coughed some, feeling a deep pain from the action in his chest from where he'd been hit by Itachi. "He…killed everyone." He said as if still in disbelief, his eyes blurry from the tears.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked, after drying his hair and face he started to do the same to Sasuke. Wiping away the blood, sweat and rain from his face only to have it replaced by more tears from his eyes and blood from the cuts on his face.

"My brother…he killed every one."

"What? Who did he kill?" Naruto asked, holding the other boy by the shoulders.

"My family…" Sasuke said, a steady flow of tears escaping from his eyes along with a few soft sobs. Naruto looked at him for a minute…

"Are you ok?" Naruto asked, feeling a warm liquid falling on to his hands. Pulling them back he found that Sasuke was blood was streaming down his face and dripping on to him. "Hold on…"

Sasuke looked on questioningly as Naruto knelt down and reached under his bed, after a second of shifting Naruto emerged with a first aid kit.

Sitting the large box next to Sasuke, he opened it up revealing that most of it had been used. Sasuke wondered how Naruto managed to use up this much bandages and antiseptic, he wasn't the type person that was clumsy enough to hurt himself this much. He could even see some dried blood that looked as if it was spilled in the last day or two, he'd have to ask about that later.

Naruto wiped off more blood from Sasuke's face, opening an antiseptic pad from it's packaging and cleaning Sasuke's cuts. "Why are you helping me?" Sasuke asked. Watching Naruto put on a few band-aids on his face.

Naruto shrugged, "I don't know, you just fell in front of me." Naruto looked down at Sasuke's shirt, finding that the black fabric was tented red from blood. He found himself lifting it up with out asking but getting no protest from the boy otherwise. "Whoa…." The only thing not hidden by the copious amounts of blood was the large burses.

Sasuke just held his head down, finding that he couldn't stop himself from crying. He didn't care, nothing really mattered at that moment. Naruto started wiping away the blood again, getting a hiss of pain from Sasuke as he brushed over the bruises. He was almost done when he felt he wetness of a tear drop fall on his forehead.

"…" Naruto pulled out more antiseptic pads and dapped them over the cuts, finding it easier to pull Sasuke's shirt off altogether then keep holding it up. "Don't cry…"

"Don't cry!" Sasuke shouted making Naruto flinch. "You have the nerve to tell me not to cry."

"I'm trying to _comfort_ you. So don't yell at me!" Naruto said in a raised voice.

"Well fucking stop it! I don't want your pity!" Sasuke said firmly, he never knew how much someone saying that to him made him mad. It sounded fake, like everybody else and it pissed him off now more then ever.

Naruto didn't appreciate getting his head taken off when he was trying to help someone, and he was never a person to bite his tongue. He obviously didn't like Sasuke and had no problem being honest or saying what he wanted too around him. "Well then open your eyes because that's exactly what your getting! Just because something happened to you doesn't give you the right to act like an asshole!" Naruto growled. He was surprised to get a strong punch to the side of his face.

Naruto fell and slid back a few feet, holding the side of his face "What the hell!" He jumped to his feet and punched Sasuke in the same place he was hit, knocking him back on to the bed. Sasuke reached up and pulled down some by his shoulders, sending another punch into his face.

"Don't patronize me!" Sasuke shouted, jumping on top of the downed Naruto and throwing a punch. Naruto grabbed his arm before he could land the blow, pulling him down while he sent his knee upward into Sasuke's chest and forcing him off.

Sasuke stumbled back into the bed while Naruto jumped on him and pinned him down. "I wasn't you bastard!" Naruto attempted to throw another blow at Sasuke, but the other boy had a firm grip on his neck with one hand and punched him with the other before he could.

"You have no idea what it's like to lose everything! And your patronizing me like you know me!" Sasuke yelled. After taking a blow Naruto managed to grab his arms and pin him down. But Sasuke was much stronger then he looked and began to push back, breaking out of Naruto's hold. Naruto pushed himself all the way on to Sasuke, pressing his body on to his and holding his hands above his head and halting most of his movement except for some squirms.

"Your talking about loss…" Naruto's voice filled with a bit of sadness along with his anger. "You lost everything, I never had anything!"

Sasuke looked up at him with more questioning in his eyes.

"You had a family! I didn't have anybody, You have a fucking Fan club! You can't find one person in Konoha who doesn't like you. Everyone HATES ME! I don't even know why. Nothing I say or do can change that. Do you know what it's like living like that every day!" Naruto glared down at Sasuke who only looked back at him in confusion.

"I…didn't know." Sasuke said, turning away and pushing Naruto off of him. He automatically began holding his chest and cringing in pain from the contact to his bruises. Getting a glimpse of his back, Naruto sighed, he was mad but he wasn't heartless.

"Roll over…" Naruto said, watching Sasuke comply and roll on to his stomach while holding his self a few inches off of the bed so his torso wouldn't make contact and cause more pain. "Well now you know." Naruto started wiping away the half dried blood from Sasuke's back, then opening another antiseptic pad to clean the wounds.

"I never knew why everyone didn't like you."

"I don't either, why didn't you like me?"

"Because everyone said I was an Uchiha and I shouldn't even be looking at someone like you…"

"…" Naruto pulled out a roll of bandages and began wrapping them around Sasuke's torso. "What are you going to do now?"

Sasuke became more solemn… "I don't know…My mother and Father didn't need to die." Sasuke felt more tears forming from the still sensitive subject. he'd forgotten about what just happened…what Itachi had done to him…everything completely when he was arguing with Naruto. He wished he was still arguing, he didn't want to face this right now.

"Because I didn't have enough power-" Sasuke clinched his eyes "The entire Uchiha family was destroyed. Every one was killed!" Sasuke buried his face in his arms, feeling his whole body trembling with anger and sadness.

"It wasn't your fault." Naruto said, wrapping the last layer of bandages over the wounds and moving back to look over his work

"How can you say that!" Sasuke said fiercely. "If I was strong enough-"

"You couldn't be strong enough. Itachi's much older then you." Naruto said.

"Why the hell dose it matter if he's older, Itachi's stronger then people older then him! If I'd trained harder-" Sasuke was cut off.

"If the whole police force couldn't stop him, how could you have stood a chance! Your lucky your not dead." Naruto snorted.

"If I'd spent more time working and less time in school learning meaningless-"

"Listen to yourself, If you didn't go to school that day you'd end up just like everyone else. And I'm sure that would have been a great loss for every girl in the school. Not to mention your Fan club, they would have been devastated!" Naruto yelled sarcastically.

"You have no idea what's it's like to be me! No one ever talks to me, they talk over me and agree with everything is say just in hopes they can use me to get on good terms with my family."

"At lest someone says something to you!" Naruto said. "Every time someone says something to me it's an insult or they're just telling me how much they hate me." He once again reconfirmed that Sasuke may have been neglected and used most of the time, but Naruto had it much worse. Which once more raised the question of how did he manage to use up this much of a first aid kit by himself.

Sasuke sat down on the edge of the bed and looked down at the box. "How did you use all of this by yourself?"

Naruto held his head down and avoided Sasuke's gaze, "I did tell you people hate me right…"

Sasuke didn't understand what he meant by it at first, "Huh?"

"Have you ever hated someone?"

"..Yes." The thought of Itachi raged through his mind, he was quickly sorting out his feelings about the whole matter.

"What would you want to do most to that person?"

Sasuke could easily say he wanted to kill Itachi right now…. which made him realize what Naruto meant. "Oh…" Sasuke wouldn't put it past people to harm Naruto conceding the way they were about him. Yeah, Naruto definitely had the harder life of anyone he'd ever seen.

"What are you going to do now?" Naruto asked, quickly changing the subject. No one at school knew about that….aspect of his life and it was kinda embarrassing.

"I don't know…I…can't go back. There's no one left of my family but me…Itachi's trying to kill me. I can't go back to that house…"

Naruto just shook his head and put the first aid kit back under his bed. "Since you already got my bed wet-" Sasuke looked down and saw that he had gotten the bed completely wet "You can stay here…But I'm sure you'd rather stay someone else so I won't keep you."

Naruto handed Sasuke his shirt, who looked down at it curiously. "I…can't. I can't stay with those people, I'll go insane." Sasuke said holding his head tightly.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Huh?" He was sure Sasuke had his reasons about it, there certainly wasn't a shortage of people willing to take him in. "You can stay here…you know, if you want to I really don't care."

"Thank you…." That was the only time Sasuke ever said thank you to Naruto…well variably at lest.

"How could you fight Sasuke!" Konohamaru growled "He was hurt."

"Huh? Sasuke started it with me." Naruto said plainly.

"What I start with you?" Sasuke's voice ran from the door way. A very tired Sasuke walked in to the room much more injured then when he left yesterday. Ignoring his own question he turned to Konohamaru, looking over the saddened expression on his face that'd been there since the night before. Konohamaru turn towards him and smiled.

"Hi Sasuke. So how'd it go?" He asked.

"I passed…Are you alright?" Sasuke asked.

The smile toned down from a real one into a fake one. "My parents died."

"…" Sasuke sat down on the bed next to him, looking down at Shikamaru who only shrugged and closed his eyes. "Are you going to be alright?"

"Yeah…" Konohamaru abruptly turned his back on Sasuke and looked towards the window. "Please don't give me that look…it's like everyone else is going to give me. I hate it when people look at me around here, it's always fake, and it's going to be even worse now…"

Sasuke laid back tiredly, landing on the other side of Konohamaru so the boy was in-between him and Naruto. "It's like torture, I'm completely isolated by people I can't even talk with…all because I'm the President's grandson."

Sasuke smirked. "I know what you mean."

"How?"


	18. Chapter 18: Faded pictures in a broken ...

Chapter 18: Faded pictures in a broken glass part 3

Lee tiredly walked in to Naruto's apparent, yawning as he looked around for any signs of people. "Where is everybody?" Lee said to himself, silently listening for the sounds of voices. He heard what he was looking for and it led him to Naruto's bed room where it seemed like everyone was waiting.

"Uh…Hi guys."

Everyone gave him some sort of sound to acknowledge him. Lee sat down next to Shikamaru, giving him a small kiss. "What am I missing?" He asked.

"I'll tell you later." Shikamaru said, laying his head lazily on his shoulder.

Naruto opened his eyes and sat up, looking towards his bed from the ground. Sasuke was gone, he'd left before he woke up. With a small shrug Naruto looked towards his alarm clock, 7:45. 'I better get ready for school.'

Sasuke trudged with a hint of depression through rain in to school, he had no other place to go…and he wasn't quite ready to go back to his house yet. He could image what it'd be like, they'd have to call in another Police department from another part of the city since the Uchiha family made up 80 of this one.

He knew that the media was having a field day, News reporters from all over the country were at his house right now. A big investigation was taking place and just about everyone was looking for any surviving Uchiha family members. If the…No, _when_ the media found out he was still alive they would swarm him like locust, then he'd be put through an integration…err questioning about what happened.

He couldn't deal with that right now, he had to go someplace where he could avoid it at lest for a moment. How long his isolation from that last was uncertain.

A walked in to his silent class room late, but everyone was quiet out of disbelief, not order. Sasuke sat down in his seat, resting his hand in his hands and looking toward the head of the class room.

"Sasuke!" And it started, by the teacher of course. "I heard what happened, are you alright!" Sasuke didn't know if this was real sympathy or just because he was an Uchiha, a little of both maybe.

"I'm fine." Sasuke said, he knew he was lying, but they weren't really paying attention to his answers anyway. The whole class was just eager to show there sympathy in hopes that they could become friends with him while he was vulnerable. 'Just shut up! Leave me alone.'

Sasuke looked around through the sea of faces and voices all trying to '_comfort_' him. His eyes drifted on to Naruto at the back of the room, his head down on top of his arms. He was the only one not obsessively try to give his condolences at every free chance during class. Naruto glanced down at him, noticing that he was watching him.

Sasuke found his last straw of sanity seeing that Naruto wasn't doing what everyone else was doing, one person. Naruto smirked, seeing that the boy continued to watch him just so he didn't have to look at anybody else, so he didn't have to deal with them. But unfortunately the whole class saw this since everything was being Sasuke centered, and they took it the completely long way.

"Naruto! I can't believe you." The teacher shouted, "You would provoke Sasuke even after all he's been through!"

"What? I wasn't provoking anyone." Naruto said in his defense, finding the whole class was glaring at him fiercely.

"Yeah! Can't you see he's depressed right now!" One of the student's yelled, the girl from yesterday that he 'bumped' into.

"Leave him alone you idiot!" Another person yelled.

Sasuke looked up at him and shrugged in a I-know-it's-not-your-fault-why-the-hell-are-they-messing-with-you type look. "I'm sorry you have to deal with this, even after what just happened to you." The teacher said. Sasuke glared at her but she didn't seem to notice how mad he was getting.

"Naruto go to detention, you're a horrible person." The teacher said. Naruto knew there was no use fighting it, he was starting to lose that will to fight he had because of how hopeless it was. The boy only walked out of the class angrily, slamming the door behind him.

Sasuke looked around at the class who was back to giving him sympathy and apologies for Naruto's behavior. 'I can't stand this any more!' Sasuke stood up abruptly from his desk and walked toward the door.

"Where are you going Sasuke?" The teacher asked.

"I need to be alone."

"I understand, That Naruto should be expelled, I'm sorry he got you so agitated. Take as much time as you need-"

Sasuke glared at her again then walked out while she was still talking, slamming the door harder then Naruto did.

"Naruto!" Sasuke called out, the boy hadn't gotten too far and he was able to catch up. "Are you really going to go to detention for something that wasn't your fault?"

"And what other choice do I have?" Naruto said, obviously still mad. "Every damn time!" He punched the wall angrily, leaving a crack behind.

Sasuke shook his head, "Don't go." He said, sitting down in the hallway against the wall.

"?" Naruto looked at him for a second…then finally shrugged and sat down on the wall opposite of him.

Sasuke shoved his hands in his pocket and walked down the rain soaked steps of his school. Happy to feel the sunshine that had finally come back. He'd left early to avoid seeing any of the students, figuring he had to go home sometime so he might as well have done so now.

Trying his best to avoid anyone he walked back to his home, finding it just as he expected. News reporters everywhere, all around a boundary set up by the police while they investigated everything. News helicopter circled, about 6 or so of them. And all of them were reporting live, the media must of thought this was gold.

Taking deep breath he walked towards his home, as soon as he got close the reports surrounded. Hearing them say a surviving Uchiha just surfaced in one way or another. He ignored them and kept walking, slipping past the police barrier and walking into the house.

An investigator quickly sat him down in the living room for questioning. "I know this is hard for you, but I'm going to have to ask you some questions ok?" The man was talking to him like he was a 4 year old, this was new.

"Don't patronize me, I'm not a baby." Sasuke said annoyedly.

"Sorry kid, well anyway. Did you see what happened?"

"My brother, Itachi, he killed everyone…" Sasuke felt tears burning in his eyes when he thought about it…

"You must have saw it incorrectly, Itachi didn't do this."

"What! I SAW HIM!"

"I told you, you must have seen it wrong. We've gathered video tape from security cameras in the area, I'll show you a few." The man got up and began talking to an officer, Sasuke watched him angrily. How could he possibly question what he saw! It was a fact that Uchihas had some of the sharpest eye sight in the world.

The man returned and put a tape in to a VCR hooked to the TV. "Alright watch closely." The man said pointing to the upper right side of the screen where it Itachi was. He of course had that gun in his hand, and was running past what appeared to be his uncle, and there also appeared to be a man behind Itachi that looked as if he was perusing him. But most of his face was in shadowed.

The man had a gun aiming it at Itachi, it appeared that the man shot his uncle instead of Itachi, But Sasuke knew better. With his sharp eyes, and a wide screen plasma TV, Sasuke could see past the shadow and tell that that man perusing Itachi was his father. And being his brother, Sasuke knew Itachi's gun was built with a concealed silencer in the barrel of it.

Itachi timed it so he was running past a person just as his father was taking a shot, so he'd shoot the person and it would appear that his father did. Knowing Itachi, he probably got the angles of entry for his bullets to look remotely like his father did it. And there wouldn't be any evidence for the forensics to trace, he was just too damn smart.

"As you can see, Itachi was running from the gun man." The investigator said, Sasuke found the thought of Itachi running from anyone laughable. Especially since he was the head of the S.W.A.T Team and one of if not the best in Konoha, but Itachi made it seem plausible. Once again he was just too damn smart.

"No! That's not what happened!" Sasuke shouted.

"Sorry kid." The man probably thought that Sasuke was traumatized, still in shock maybe.

"No! ITACHI DID! WHY WONT YOU LISTEN TO ME!" Sasuke yelled, he didn't even know the point of this questioning if they didn't take the answers the didn't like.

"I'll finish after you've had time to take it all in." The man said getting up and walking, Sasuke held his head and bit back a scream. If one more person tried to _Sympathize _he wouldn't be able to-

"How are you holding up?"

"AAAAAAHHHHHHAHHH!"

"Huh?" Naruto put down his cup raman when he heard a knock at the door. 'Who could this possibly be? And why would they becoming here?'

Naruto opened to door to see a depressed Sasuke standing there. "I…can't go back to that house…I can't deal with those people…This is the only place I could go…" Sasuke felt like he was about to go insane, the last place he wanted to be was at his house.

Naruto looked at him questingly, 'Why would he want to come back here?' Naruto thought about it for a second…Sasuke had been relatively different towards him over the course of the day, he was the only in class…or Konoha that wasn't turning against him…except for maybe Iruka. With a shrug Naruto let him in.

"Want some raman?" Naruto offered.

Sasuke looked down at his stomach, he hadn't eaten since yesterday. The boy nodded gratefully.

After that Sasuke never really did go back home, Naruto was the only actual friend he had. They constantly argued every day, there personality were just too different not to conflict. But it wasn't a bad thing, every time they argued they forgot about everything else. Any anger and frustration Naruto was feeling about living in a place that hated him, and Sasuke about all of the completely fake people around him and the fact that everyone he loved was killed by the person he used loved most.

After about 2 weeks, he started to wounded why people were more fake and tried to bend over backwards to do anything to get in good with him. His family was dead, there was no one left to impress. But he soon found out.

Naruto and Sasuke walked into what now seemed appropriately their home. Sasuke had received a large yellow envelope in the mail…which one of his extremely eager to please members of his fan club delivered to him. He wasn't to happy about people going through his mail…

He sat down on the bed and began opening it with Naruto standing over his shoulder. He pulled out a stack of legal papers from the office of Mizuki Daitoppa, "What is this?" Sasuke laid the papers on the bed and spread them out, looking over each of them.

"It looks like Wills…" Naruto picked a few of them. "From everybody in the Uchiha family!"

There was a letter from Mizuki himself, a legal adviser who was the first to take up the case. "This guy…he says that since I'm the only remaining member of the Uchiha family that I get all of the family's assets."

"Itachi must have left town…" Naruto said, looking over the second page of the wills where each members possessions were listed. Everybody who left behind wills…which was everyone in the family…things, including funds, were transferred to Sasuke. All of it was summed up in Mizuki's letter.

"In total I get….55.9 million dollars after taxes….Plus property and possessions, and all of the family's real estate." Sasuke said, he didn't sound happy about it. Naruto was smart enough to know that this wasn't a thing to be celebrated.

Sasuke held his head down…more tears started to burn at his eyes. It was almost as if none of this officially happened until today, this was the last bit of his family, all of it was in his hand…Sasuke felt Naruto 's arms wrap around him in a warm embrace, he couldn't help but burry his face in to his chest.

He wouldn't let himself cry anymore though, even if he was tempted too. Sasuke let himself stay there, thinking about everything. "It's not official…I have to clam it, and I'd need a legal guardian to do it."

"Who would you have in mind, everybody would be willing." Naruto said.

"I don't want to be anywhere near these people…I want to stay here…" Sasuke buried his face deeper into Naruto's chest

Naruto looked down at him curiously, he would never admit it but Sasuke was right, they'd grown too attached to each other. "What are you going to do?"

"I could get someone to be my guardian, but they'd get the money. I don't want the last of my family in the hands of these greedy people…Or I could try for an emancipation, that'd way I'd get everything…but it's a long shot."

"If you want to go for a legal guardian, I know just the guy. He's not greedy or anything."

Sasuke looked up at him. "Who?"

"How did this happen?" Iruka sighed, walking into Mizuki's office with Naruto and Sasuke. Directly from work, he was still in his Air Force uniform. The ranking system here was different, but still the same as the past. The first level of being a ninja there was going into the regular Army here. They were the ones that did all the menial task, just like Genins.

From there they went to either the Air force or Navy, or like in Sasuke's case to the Police academy (Police academy was an advanced Genin). The paths differed slightly, Navy was the easiest to get in to, then the Police force was in the middle. Air Force was the hardest to be accepted in, leaps and bounds over the Police force.

Then after that, the Air Force and The navy went to higher ranks of their field, such as a Commander. It was much harder to become and Air Force commander then one of the Navy. The police force again was in the middle with S.W.A.T., which was about at the same level as some being accepted into the Air Force.

Then the S.W.A.T team went up to the Bomb squad or Special forces, Bomb squad was about at the level of a Navy Commander and Special forces was a little higher then Air Force commander.

"Thanks Iruka, it would have been a lot harder with out you." Naruto said, following behind him and Sasuke to the small office where three chairs lay in front of the desk where Mizuki was waiting.

Mizuki looked at Naruto, with obvious distaste "What is he doing here?"

"I want him here." Sasuke growled protectively, glaring at the man for a minute. Iruka lent down and whispered into his ear.

"This guy is two-faced, he's probably going to try and get your money so pay attention."

The three sat down. "Alright let's get strait to the point, I'm sure you read my letter and you're here to clam the Uchiha inheritance. There is some legal details to it, you can't clam it yourself-"

"We know, He's going to be my guardian." Sasuke said.

"Alright, I'll get the paper work on that started. Iruka, your going to have to fill this out." Mizuki had everything ready, the papers were waiting on his desk. Iruka started to fill the necessary forms out while Mizuki then handed Sasuke another paper "You'll need to sign this or else everything become property of Konoha."

Mizuki handed him a pin and pointed to the doted line. "Wait a minute, let me see those papers." Iruka intruded, taking the contract from Sasuke's hand.

"There's no need for that, I made sure everything was in order already." Mizuki did.

"Yeah, you sure did." Iruka looked up at him. "30 of everything seems a little ambitious even for you."

"That's just legal fees and-"

"I'm not stupid Mizuki, I wont let you cheat him out of his money." Iruka looked down at the paper, besides the 30 Mizuki was also trying to get them with fine print of other details. "You are _really_ greedy."

"Everything in that contract is justified, Konoha law 1.83.03 states-"

"I know what the law states." Iruka said, ripping up the contract. "You know we don't have to close this deal with you, there are plenty of others in this city."

Mizuki started to get nervous, "Then why are you still here."

"I'm going to make a deal. Cut out all the fine print and you get 2." Iruka said firmly, leaving no room for negotiations.

"2? The regular Minimum is 10."

"That's just a guideline not the requirement. Take it or leave it."

"Everyone else is going to charge you at lest 10."

Iruka smirked "That maybe true, but If we go to someone else you don't get anything. And a greedy person like your self would take what they could get."

Mizuki swore to himself silently. "Fine."

"Wow, Go Iruka." Naruto said admiringly.

"Alright Sasuke, everything is yours. I'll go through the legal processes to get you full ownership, I'm sure you don't want to be bothered with it." Iruka said.

"Your not going to try and keep any?" Sasuke asked.

"I already have as much money as I need, it'd be no point in trying to take some of yours. You deserve it." Iruka said, starting to walk off.

"See ya Iruka." Naruto waved.

"Goodbye Naruto, Sasuke."

The two watched the man's fleeing form "I told you he wasn't selfish." Naruto said proudly.

"So how much money do you have?" Lee asked.

"The same amount I named." Sasuke said, closing his eyes. That training process was tiring.

Lee looked over towards Shikamaru. "Come on, I want to show you some of the city. This place is amazing." He grabbed Shikamaru by the waist before he could protest and lifted him on to his feet.

"I don't have any other choice do I?" He sighed, letting himself be led by an excited Lee.

Konohamaru watched the two leave, looking over at the clock, 10:00 in the morning. "I'd better get going, my grandfather is probably worried" The boy lifted himself off the bed, seeing that Sasuke had already fallen asleep. "See ya Naruto."

"I'll see you later."


	19. Chapter 19: Secret

Chapter 19: Secret

Konohamaru felt himself on the verge of losing it, he barley got a block from Naruto's apartment before every person on the street started showing their sympathy for his parents death. "Konohamaru I'm sorry for your lose." and the always popular "Konohamaru are you alright?" Didn't he look alright! Konohamaru thought he did but he figured he must have looked pretty bad if every other person he saw asked him that.

Konohamaru stopped at the window of a restaurant so he could see is reflection. He looked just about the same as usual, only his face had a more forlorn e expression to it. But he looked like this many times before an no one ever gave him a second look besides the usual it's the president's grandson one.

"Konohamaru I'm sorry for your lose, are you going to be alright?" A passing woman said,

"Urggh!" Konohamaru clinched his head to hold back anymore of the scream, "I'm fine!" he yelled before running off, maybe if he went fast enough no one would be able to say something to him…

Konohamaru abruptly stopped when he saw Ebisu turn the corner 'No! I'm not ready to go back!' His mind said frantically, taking a few steps to the side through a crowd of people to avoid being spotted, but he knew that wouldn't be enough to evade Ebisu who always managed to catch him except for the one time yesterday.

Konohamaru couldn't imagine the look on his face when Ebisu walked right past him, not seeming to notice him. But he could swear he saw the man glance at him through the sunglasses he wore, Konohamaru sighed in relief and kept running, going into a full sprint when he saw someone else was about to talk to him.

He had to go somewhere…If he went back to Naruto's house he'd only disturb Sasuke and he deserved some rest after going through 8 weeks of training and entrance tests in two days non-stop. 'There is one place I can go…'

"I told you this place is amazing!" Lee said walking down the familiar streets.

"You know your way around this place?" Shikamaru asked, he had to admit that the city from the exact center was an amazing sight. Buildings had large screens on them showing commercials adverting just about anything they could think of showing. Cars were everywhere, people were everywhere, buildings were everywhere. It was overwhelming, even he wanted to see more of it.

"Yeah, Gai-sensei showed me around. This place is great isn't it." Lee said excitedly, waving through the crowd of oncoming people. "And I found out the money we used in the past is an artifact here, Gai-sensei had it appraised for me, it's worth 20 times more."

"20 times more huh? What are you going to do with it?" Shikamaru asked.

"I don't know, let's go find something . I've seen some really interesting things." Lee said grabbing Shikamaru's hand and leading him along like anxious child, Shikamaru couldn't help but grin and go with it.

"Lee?"

Lee abruptly stopped when he noticed that he ran past Gai, "Hi Gai-sensei."

"Hello Lee….from the past right?"

"Uh-huh."

"It's so confusing." Gai said with a small smile. "What are you doing here?"

"Showing Shikamaru around." Lee said.

"And you must be from the past also." Gai said.

Shikamaru nodded "Yeah…This place is completely different from my time…yet everything's the same."

"That's interesting." Gai said, wondering what he meant but finally he just shrugged it off after a few seconds. "Well if you guys want to see the city there's a much better way of going about it."

"What is it?" Lee asked.

Gai pointed to a red convertible behind him, "I can show you around, it'd be my pleasure."

Lee and Shikamaru looked at each other "I've been wanting to take a ride in one of those things." Lee said.

With a sigh of relief, Konohamaru laid down across the back seat of a huge SUV, looking up at a 9 in. TV screen hanging from the ceiling in-between the driver and passenger seat. "I can't take this anymore…" Konohamaru said, he wasn't just saying that, he was actually to his limit.

"Then why don't you leave, take a vacation or something." Kisame said from the drivers seat. He was wearing black pants, black boots and a red t-shirt

"Yeah maybe…" Konohamaru said, looking towards Itachi, he could only help but think of what would happen if Sasuke knew he was friends with his brother… Konohamaru was a little saddened now when he looked towards Itachi, he seemed friendly enough to him. Konohamaru knew both of them could be…mean towards others to say the least. It just didn't seem like Itachi would do something like he did

"Itachi?" Konohamaru's eyes were steady on the ceiling, "…Why did you do it?" Konohamaru never knew what Itachi had done exactly until today, he never imaged it would be so bad, and he did it to Sasuke, His Sasuke!

"Do what?" Itachi asked, he was wearing a black silk shirt with dress pants, oddly similar to Sasuke expect for the colors.

"You know…killing your family."

Kisame looked at Itachi and shrugged "He had to find out sooner or later…how did you find out?"

"His brother told me."

Kisame immediately seemed confused "You have a brother?"

Itachi sighed, "Yes I have a brother."

"But why did you do that? Why did you hurt Sasuke?" Konohamaru asked with a saddened tone

Kisame did seem to be paying attention to his last question, "Damn, he must hate you then."

"Yeah…he dose." Konohamaru told him.

Kisame looked back Konohamaru as soon as he got to a stop light "What's with you and Uchihas? Your hanging with Itachi and his brother, one of them hates the other? What are the odds? I mean are Uchihas just drawn to you?"

Konohamaru ignored him for the moment "Why Itachi…?"

Itachi looked back at him with all seriousness, more so then Konohamaru ever seen him use with him "Why do you want to know?"

"Because you hurt Sasuke!" Konohamaru said with angry undertones. "What happened, you just went crazy and started killing people!"

"That's not entirely true."

"Really?" Kisame asked "That's how I heard it."

Itachi glared at him for a moment and looked back at Konohamaru "There was a reason for what I did."

"What is it?" Konohamaru asked, he had to hear this one, and he really hoped it was good because he didn't want to stop being hanging around Itachi…He'd probably still do it even if the reason was bad, he just like Itachi too much, it was like Sasuke only darker…if that's possible. But both of them seemed to drop that outer persona when they were around Konohamaru, Maybe Kisame was right, Uchihas just like him.

"If I tell you, you _cannot_ tell Sasuke. Do you understand?" Itachi's voice cold and hard, making it deadly serous that he meant what he said. But on the other hand, he was telling him his most personal secret.

"Yes." Konohamaru nodded, sitting up.

Itachi looked over him for a moment and then turned around, keeping his eyes steady on the road ahead. "The Uchiha family wasn't a normal family, they weren't normal Konoha citizens. You could even say they weren't."

Both Konohamaru and Kisame listened attently as Itachi continued. "Uchiha's were pushed and trained to be the absolute best from birth, they also made up most of the Police department and a few other positions of authority all security centered. There was a reason the adults pushed me to go to the police academy instead of the Air Force like I wanted."

Itachi paused and looked back at Konohamaru, debating weather or not he should continue. Finally after a few seconds he decided to keep going. "It was because the whole Uchiha family were Sound spies. They specialized mainly in giving information about The Leaf's defense and how to get around them."

Konohamaru held his head down, they all would have been killed anyway of Itachi had revealed his knowledge so it was almost justified, not really though. "But why didn't you just tell Sasuke that? Why did you have to hurt him?"

"I wanted him to hate me."

Konohamaru looked up at him with confusion, "Why would you want him to hate you?"

Itachi was silent, so Konohamaru knew he wouldn't get an answer out of him. He didn't understand but Kisame did. "Wow, that was complete a bring down." Kisame said. "Anyway, Were gonna leave town again in an hour."

"Oh…Where are you guys going this time?"

"Not sure, were probably going to end up in another country though, probably Sound."

"Well then I guess I have to go back then." Konohamaru sighed. "It was nice seeing you guys again."

"You should think about taking that vacation if this place is getting to you." Kisame said.

That didn't sound like a bad idea, it may even be the key to saving his sanity, Naruto and Sasuke couldn't do it alone and with Kisame and Itachi leaving….

Kisame dropped him off near home, he decide it was time to go back, his Grandfather was probably worried. "See ya Kisame, Bye-" Konohamaru stopped, thinking better than to call out Itachi's name in public. He knew Sasuke's fan club would be all over him in a second, Sasuke would have been happy to get away from it but Itachi wouldn't like the attention. In fact he made it a point that no one knew when he was in Konoha, everyone thought he was a hero that survived the Uchiha family's massacre. Survived….yeah right, twistedly ironic almost. Konohamaru just decided to close the door and have his goodbye silently understood.

With a saddened expression Konohamaru ran towards the Presidential Palace, a.k.a the White house. Finding Ebisu sitting next to the door waiting for him. "Where were you last night?"

"Nowhere." Konohamaru said defensively, not wanting to tell him that he had been at Naruto's apartment. The boy made his way to the office he knew his grandfather was waiting from, security letting him through every check point through out the white house and into the room.

Konohamaru looked up at his Grandfather, both of them silent for a moment. Sarutobi got up from his desk, still looking down at his formerly missing Grandson, who only looked away with his eyes downcast. "Konohamaru."

Konohamaru clinched his fist, trying to hold anything he was feeling come rushing back. 'No I wont cry! There's no point in crying, it wont bring them back.' He thought, trying to convince himself not to cry but despite what his mind said he was still sad over his parents deaths.

Finally he ran over to the man, hugging him tightly and letting himself cry again. 'Why do I keep wanting to cry, it just making things worse!' His mind screamed as Sarutobi knelt down and hugged him back

"I wanted to tell you, but it seems you got away from Ebisu the one time when it was important." Sarutobi sounded a little different when he said that last part about Ebisu, but Konohamaru couldn't figure out what it meant exactly.

"I hate this! They didn't have to die, it's all because of this stupid war. Why is it even happening?"

"Konohamaru, even if I explained it to you now you wouldn't understand it. It complicated and I wish it was over too but it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. You have to be strong."

"I know…It's just….I can't take this anymore."

"…Konohamaru." Sarutobi could do nothing but shake his head, Konohamaru had been through a lot. He'd seen things…on numerous occasions, it gave him an almost fear of blood and death. Not death specifically, just dead bodies. But he was determined to go to military school and become a good solider, just so he could get out of Sarutobi's shadow. He'd witness a lot of it if he wanted to follow his dream, so he tried his best to block it out when he did come across it.

Sarutobi knew from past assassination attempts on himself that when Konohamaru came across blood, his own specifically, and tried to block that anxiety he felt out. Things only got worse….

"Forget it, I'll be alright." Konohamaru let go of his grandfather and wiped away his tears with his arm.

"This machine is amazing, how dose it work?" Lee asked, peering up from the back seat of Gai's car. Just like Gai himself, this car was mostly strength. It was fast _and_ could tow a heavy load up a steep hill, mostly strength all in a nice, slick package. The type of things people bought said a lot about their personality and this summed up Gai completely.

"I'll show you, I'll even teach you how to drive it." Gai said, automotives where his hobby, he knew just about everything about any machine that rolled on 2 or more wheels. He almost went into racing, but he found a job he liked even better. He was a commander in the Air force and went on to enter the Leaf Special forces, opposed to Kakashi who and Air force commander that went on to be in the Bomb squad.

"Really?" Lee said, looking around at the passing city.

"Of course. You know Lee, I mean the other Lee, uses a Motorcycle. I'm sure he'd be happy to teach you how to drive that too. I'm… pretty sure you guys don't know what that is yet." Yeah, the legal driving age was pretty low for those who took an extra test when going to get their drivers license.

"Not a clue." Shikamaru let his hands rest behind his head and looked toward the sky. It was much more comfortable with wind blowing over him and leather seats under his body. It was much better then how he lounged around in the past, this easily topped it. He could get use to this. But it was hard to just be lazy with so much to see around him, so much to learn that he was actually interested in knowing.

There was nothing like a trip to the future to change your outlook on life, at lest temporally.

Naruto silently let go of the sleeping Sasuke when he heard a knock at the door. Pushing himself off the bed he walked indifferently toward the source of the sound, not like he was doing anything anyway. Just laying around next to Sasuke watching TV, he was reluctant to admit he missed him a little overnight and was happy to just be around him now that he was back.

Naruto opened the door to see Iruka on the other side baring gifts. "Hi Naruto, I brought you some raman." Iruka said, he'd gotten off work early which had mostly been training drills like usual due to the fact they were in the middle of a _war_. Kakashi was no where to be found and would show up eventually, so Iruka had nothing else to do, "Is Sasuke here too?"

Naruto barely heard the question because he so busy hugging him gratefully while reaching for the raman wrapped tightly in a bag. "Yeah he's asleep." Naruto said, feeling Iruka place a hand on his forehead and pushed him away. Making it clear that Naruto would at lest have to wait until he got it out of the bag.

Iruka sat the food down on the table. "So what have you been up to lately?"

"Nothing." Naruto said, Iruka could immediately tell something was bothering him by his voice. Call it a parental instinct, go figure.

"What's wrong with you?" Iruka asked, pulling the contents of the bag out and setting them aside.

There was no use denying it, Iruka knew him to well. "Nothings really wrong with me, it's more like something's nagging at me. It'd Konoha, I love this place and all…"

"And?" Iruka asked while taking a bowl out of a cabinet and pouring some Raman into it. Setting it in front of the boy.

He could tell Naruto was serous because he didn't immediately dive into it. "It's hard staying in a place that hates you…It's starting to get to me, I think I need to get out of Konoha for a while. Before I snap."

Iruka wondered what suddenly brought this up, it made him looked over Naruto questioningly, noticing a few more cuts and bruises on him then he on him saw yesterday. Sasuke was too tired to notice and Naruto hadn't said anything, he usually didn't. Iruka frowned, "It happened again…Damnit you should have told me."

"Hey! I can handle myself! I won this time." Naruto didn't smirk like he usually did after a telling someone about a victory.

"Who was it? How many of them were there?" Iruka asked frantically, anger building

"I don't know, and it's already over. Not much you can do about it now."

Iruka shifted his eyes to the wall and glared "I swear if I get my hands on them…"

"Iruka…"

Iruka sighed, beating up a few people wouldn't stop it in general. It was bound to happen again and no one would probably be there to help him anyway, he won this time against unfair odds. The first time ever, Naruto could handle himself now, he wasn't a little kid. But still, he didn't deserve this at all… And if Sasuke found out what happened, as vindictive as he was he'd no doubt track down those responsible and leaving then next to dead if not kill them for it.

"If you want to leave Konoha for a while I support you, but I don't think it's going to be easy with the war. They're not going to let you go."

Naruto stood up and slammed his fist on the table "I'll fight my way out if I have to, I just…" He stopped, realizing how excited he was getting over this and sat down. Iruka could see just how badly he need to do this. "I would come back and defend Konoha anytime, I just need to get away for a while. Just a little while."

"I'd say…the easiest and maybe only way to take this trip is to talk to the president. He might let you go, but it might be hard…" He had to rephrase that "It's going to be hard to get an appointment with him."

"Maybe I should just forget about it, I'm trapped here." Naruto said with a heavy sigh, stirring around in his Raman with his chopsticks and still hadn't eaten any of it.

"You've never been the type to just give up."

Naruto was loosening his will to fight in a mental sense, "What's the point, No matter what I do-"

Just then a small yawn could be heard from a Sasuke walking in to the kitchen, awakened when Naruto slammed his hands on the table. He stopped and looked at an extremely pissed looking Iruka and a reluctant Naruto. He only shrugged and walked to the refrigerator "You idiot, your actually just going to quit."

"How did you-"

"I was asleep, not deaf dobe. How could I not wake up, you two could pull somebody out of a coma." Sasuke emerged with a pop in hand, standing over Naruto's shoulder. "If you really want to go…" His voice became much softer then usual. "I'll do anything to help you." Then his voice returned to normal "And don't think your going with out me."


	20. Chapter 20: Sands of time part 4

Chapter 20: Sands of time part 4

Konohamaru wandered around the hallways, the people in the white house were even worse then those on the street. Mainly because they were more familiar with him and took the liberty of to talk more, it was aggravating. Each person pushed him more and more toward the edge, and they thought his reaction of trying to get away from them was because he was still in shock about what happened and didn't want to face it.

They were right in a sense, Konohamaru was pushing it away and refusing to morn over his parents anymore. But them in their 'sympathy' was making it worse, he hated being that poor little kid who was too young to have to deal with. And even worse he was the President's only remaining relative, so he was in the spotlight.

"Konohamaru, I heard what happened-" A staff member, a man named Kabuto who was apart of the security team in the white house saw him wondering the halls, actually trying to make it too his room before this happened.

"AAAAAHHHHHHH!" Konohamaru yelled, clinching his head and making a run for his room… only to run into Sarutobi and be knocked to the ground,

"Maybe it'd be better if you left him alone for awhile." Sarutobi said to Kabuto, he only looked at Konohamaru concernedly before walking away. Sarutobi look down at his Grandson rubbing his face in pain, "Konohamaru."

"Grandfather, sorry I wasn't watching were I was-"

"It's alright Konohamaru." Sarutobi finally realized what he meant when he said that he couldn't take it anymore. Usually after running off with out telling anyone Sarutobi would make him stay in for a day or two. Konohamaru figured he'd be grounded for a while when he went a whole night with out coming back.

Konohamaru headed into his room to his surprise his Grandfather followed him. "If it's-"

"Konohamaru what's wrong with you?" He asked, Konohamaru held his head down, after a few moments of silence the boy shook his head in reply. "I know what it's like to have all of this unwanted attention from people who could really careless about you. Especially around here…So if you want to you can go out for a while, maybe you can find some peace and quite somewhere."

Konohamaru looked up at the man questioningly, "Really? I'm not grounded?"

"No, contrary to what you may think I do understand what your going through. But make sure you come back this time ok?"

After a few hours of showing them around, Gai actually got around to showing Lee how the car worked. Both of them where standing over the hood while Shikamaru was sitting against the back wall lazily, at an angle where he could just barely see what they were doing. "I'd like to meet the person who thought of this." Lee said, looking over the machinery and equipment before him. "What's this?" He asked, pointed to a particular spot on the left side.

"That's the engine." Gai said, and engine that cost a lot of time and money to build himself.

"Gai-sensei-" Lee stopped when he heard a sound behind him, it was him…Lee walking into the garage.

"Hi Lee." He said, noting that talking to his double still felt strange, it was like talking to himself in a mirror.

Gai looked down at his watch, "I almost forgot. It is time for your training isn't it." Gai closed the hood, turning around and seeing the two Lees talking to each other. "How much training have you had in the past Lee?"

The Lee in the green body suit look up at him "A lot."

"Great, let's see how much."

Konohamaru of course went back to Naruto's house, he didn't think he could tolerate anyone else's house. And it would take to long to find a quiet spot in the huge city, he'd snap at someone before then. "Huh?" He found the door was unlocked so he walked inside, Naruto was digging into a bowl of raman uncharacteristically stoic and Sasuke was probably still sleep.

"Konohamaru, what are you doing back so soon?" Naruto asked.

"I had to get out of there, I couldn't take it." Konohamaru asked. "My Grandfather knows this time so Ebisu isn't going to come after me." He sat down in the chair opposite of Naruto and laid his hands in his arms. "Where is Sasuke?"

Naruto pointed toward the bed room, "He's back there with Iruka…" Naruto could easily see that Konohamaru wasn't happy, he seemed even worse then when he left. "Are you going to be alright Konohamaru? At some point your going to have to face this again."

Konohamaru looked up at him, it didn't sound so annoying when coming from Naruto "I feel like I'm going crazy." He sighed, getting up from his chair and walking to the bed room.

Iruka was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed looking at the TV but it wasn't sure if he was watching it or not. Sasuke was laying across the bed so that his legs were hanging over the side with his hands behind his head. "Konohamaru?"

"Hi Sasuke, Iruka-sensei" Konohamaru said without his usual cheer, He sat down in-between Sasuke's legs and Iruka. Sasuke slid down off the bed next to Konohamaru.

"Hello Konohamaru." Iruka said, he was used to seeing the boy here.

"What are you doing back so soon?" Sasuke asked.

Konohamaru laid his head on Sasuke's shoulder, happy that he was letting him do this. Naruto walked in and sat on the other side of Sasuke, bowl of Ramen in hand. "I want to go someplace else for a while." Konohamaru said

"What do you mean?" Sasuke asked.

"I just need to leave this city for a while…" Konohamaru looked down toward the ground and held his hands between his legs. "Just…for a little while."

Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other, "Us too." Naruto said.

Konohamaru looked up at him. "Can I go with you guys?" He asked frantically. "I'm going to go out of my mind here, Please?"

"It's fine with me." Naruto said, folding his arms "If we make it out of Konoha. We need permission from your grandfather."

"Wow, that's going to be tough." All 4 of them looked back to see Kakashi sitting on the bed. "Hey look the News, I didn't know there was a storm headed for Konoha. Looks bad"

"How the hell did you do that! How did you get in!" Naruto shouted angrily.

Kakashi jumped down next to Iruka, pulling his collar down and giving him a kiss. "Where where you?" Iruka asked.

"See, what had happened was-"

Iruka shrugged "Nevermind."

Kakashi looked over the group, "So, this is where the missing Uchiha Sasuke goes, and the President's grandson. What are the odds."

"What are you doing here?" Sasuke asked annoyedly, he had enough of Kakashi for the day after that training.

Kakashi wrapped his arms around Iruka "Looking for my lost dolphin." He nuzzled in to Iruka's neck, giving him a few small kisses.

"Kakashi." Iruka tried to pry him off but his grip was too strong and finally Iruka gave up and let him stay there.

Sasuke, Naruto and Konohamaru just watched uncomfortably for a moment, "We can't we be like _that?_" Naruto asked jokingly.

"Because your you dobe and I'm me." Sasuke said with amused undertones.

"We could be like that…" Konohamaru said just above a mumble.

"Huh?" Sasuke didn't seem to hear him clearly.

Konohamaru rubbed his head and laughed "Nothing."

"Konohamaru, can you get us an appointment with your Grandfather?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah, I can probably get one today." Konohamaru said, trying to be hasty about it because he need this just as much as Naruto did.

"The kids are leaving home, we should have a goodbye party." Kakashi said, letting of Iruka and pulling up his collar again.

Naruto laid his head back and looked toward the TV "No one would come."

Shikamaru lay in the backyard of Gai's house, watching two tired Lees look over each other. Gai thought it would be a good idea to put both Lees against each other as a measure of strength. Turns out they were exactly equal, which was outspokenly expected. At times it was hard to tell them apart because of how fast they were, you would think because Lee was from the past and could jump really really high that he would be the fastest.

Like in everything else they were equal, expect that their fighting styles were the exact opposite of each other. The Lee's from the past was much more structured, and the Lee's from the present wasn't, it had none at all but it made a strange sense and it worked. Most of the time they canceled each other out with a lot of recoil.

"I think…this is getting us…nowhere." the Lee from the past said, Shikamaru was thankful for that green body suit or he'd lose track.

"He's…right…" The Lee from the present said.

"You two are great." Gai said handing both of them a bottle of water. "You could learn a lot from each other, in fact you should."

Both Lee's looked at each other.

"Thank you for seeing us Mr. President." Naruto said, being uncharacteristically polite. It was almost funny, to Sasuke at lest.

"No problem, it's nice to finally meet Konohamaru's friends." Sarutobi said, sitting down at his desk and signaling security they could go. With a nod two men, one of them being Ebisu, left the room.

"So what do you two need to see me about?"

"We're requesting permission to leave Konoha temporarily." Sasuke said.

Sarutobi looked over the three, Konohamaru seemed especially focus. He'd never seen the boy pay that much attention or look so serous. "How long would this be?"

"How ever long we can go." Naruto said.

"Hmm…" Sarutobi started considering things. "Well-"

"Grandpa, I want to go with them." Konohamaru said, cutting in before he could finish his statement.

"What? Why do you-" Sarutobi stopped, he finally realized what Konohamaru meant before. "……I don't think so."

"What? Why?" Naruto asked frantically.

"It's just not a good time." Sarutobi said regretfully.

"No you can't say that!" Konohamaru shouted "You have to let us go, Please!" He was literally begging, and it was completely sincere.

"Konohamaru…"

"We need this…I need this, just for a week, something!"

Sarutobi sighed "I can't, it's just not safe. Especially not for you Konohamaru."

"I don't care! Just let us take this trip, Please." By now everyone was looking at Konohamaru, amazed by his desperation.

"I'm sorry, I understand why you want to do this-"

"Then let me Grandpa!"

"I'm not going to lie, I would let all of you go under normal circumstances. But it's just not a good time right now."

Konohamaru stood up "Please…"

"I'm sorry but no."

"AAAhhhhhhh!" Konohamaru yelled in a cry of frustration and anger. "It's not fair! Why are you doing this!"

"Konohamaru."

"You don't even care that I'm going crazy here! It's not fair!" Konohamaru felt tears of anger coming to his eyes. "This is your fault!"

"Konohamaru calm down." Sarutobi said

"I don't care about this stupid war!" Konohamaru yelled completely oblivious to his grandfather's words or the course his were taking.

"Konohamaru."

It's your fault This is happening! This war is your fault!" Konohamaru yelled.

"Konohamaru!"

A loud, furious sob escaped from the boy as he slammed his fist on the desk separating him from his grandfather. "It's your fault my parents are dead! "

Sarutobi's eyes went wide for a second, he didn't expect to hear that, it made him a little angry "I didn't put my son in that situation, He was the one determined to go to protect this place! To protect you! This country that your trying to leave! I didn't force Reedamaru to go out there, I didn't even want him to, so don't ever insinuate that this was my fault when I did everything I could to stop it!"

Just for a moment Sarutobi forgot he was talking to his Grandson, a boy who'd just lost his parents the day before, who refused to morn over it. Who just wanted to get away from this for a moment and dissevered too. Being the President's Grandson subjected him to more than just somebody's shadow and to be known forever nothing else as such. Because of the war he was put through mental and sometimes physical hell through all of his life.

And Sarutobi felt guilty because that much was his fault. Because he was the Grandson of the President trying to live a normal life but prohibited to go anywhere with out protection. There were numerous times when the Sound tried to kill him to get to Sarutobi. Or tried to capture him to get information about Konoha that he knew a lot of.

His body guards were killed in front of him on occasion, he'd been splattered with their blood. He'd even been covered in his grandfather's blood 2 years ago when a nearly successful murder attempt happened. All of this had given Konohamaru his general uneasiness from blood, it seemed the only member of his original guards that survived was Ebisu. The man had been nearly killed plenty of times and had grown a general protectiveness of him over because of it.

A 9 year-old shouldn't be subject to assassination attempts from Sound hunter solders and spies. He _deserved_ this, he _needed_ it, and Sarutobi couldn't give it to him.

"This isn't fair, I hate you!" Konohamaru ran out of the room in a furry of anger.

"Konohamaru!" Sasuke and Naruto ran after him.

'I really am sorry, but since there's a powerful storm headed for Konoha intelligence is saying that the Sound is most definitely planning an attack and using it as cover. All of you could get caught in the crossfire, I'm doing this to protect you' Sarutobi sighed, he honestly wished he could have given all of them what they wanted. It was a simple request, Konohamaru was even going to go with them so it was no hassle. All he had to do was say Yes, but he couldn't.

Konohamaru ran out of building, out on to the large lawn with full speed, but in usual Konohamaru fashion he tripped over his scarf and fell face first into the ground. With in a second Naruto and Sasuke were over him. "It's not fair." Konohamaru said, wiping his eyes with his arm.

"Do you really believe all of those things you said about your Grandfather?" Naruto asked, already knowing the answer.

Konohamaru was silent for a moment. "…No. I know I shouldn't have said it but…"

"I'm sure that there was nothing he could do." Naruto said.

"Tch." Sasuke shook his head. "So both of you are giving up now?"

"What else are we going to do?" Konohamaru asked,

"I have an idea."


	21. Chapter 21: Sands of time part 5

Chapter 21: Sands of time part 5

This chapter is going to be directly connected to Chapter 21 in 'Naruto: Water'. Just a heads up, though this one starts just before that Chapter 21 happens. Then when the time change happens (indicated by the double ! lines) The story happens after Chapter 21 in water. Just a heads up because this one is written strangely

"So we used the storm as cover….and then leave." Naruto said, repeating it to get the grasp of it. Many things came to mind when he thought of that plan, all of the reason's it might not work. "That's the best you can come up with?"

Sasuke shot him a look from the ground on the side of Naruto's bed, "I've went through every other option we have, this is the only one that has a chance of working. Unless you have a better idea?" Sasuke looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.

Naruto sighed "It's good plan but…we can't just walked out of the city gates, look at the storm." Naruto pointed to the TV where the News had taken over whatever show was currently supposed to be on to warn Konoha about an approaching storm. It was a little over the size of a Hurricane, they were showing it with colors to rate it's severity. All of it was completely red, this was one hell of a storm coming "It would pick us apart."

Sasuke smirked, "Who said anything about walking?"

Konohamaru looked over to him, he was sitting next to Sasuke on the bed "What do you mean? They shut down all air traffic, and even if they didn't my Grandfather wouldn't just let us take a plane out of here."

"No, but we can drive." Sasuke said.

"Drive? You don't have a car." Konohamaru said questioningly.

Naruto snorted "He's rich remember." Naruto knew Sasuke had grown accustom to being reluctant to spend his family's money. He didn't want too, at least not until he….

"Look at that…" Future Lee said, sitting against the wall still in Gai's backyard. The other Lee and Shikamaru were doing the same, all three of them looking towards the sky where an ominously huge mass of pitch black clouds could be seen over the horizon.

"Doesn't this remind you of something?" Shikamaru asked.

Past Lee nodded "How could I forget the storm that wiped out Konoha."

"Huh?" Future Lee looked over at the two "You were there when it happened?"

"Yeah." Shikamaru said "It started just like this, unusually hot, humid, stronger wind speeds. Turns out the storm cell had been formed with Chakra which made it that powerful."

Future Lee started to get nervous, "Do you think this could be the same storm?"

Lee and Shikamaru both shrugged "I couldn't say." Shikamaru told him.

Gai walked out of his house in to the back yard. "Bad News, the storm that's coming has been rated level 5. A lot of storm proofing and preparation has to be done before it hits."

Future Lee swallowed, "Oh man, I better get home." he said, picking himself up. "See ya Gai-sensei."

"Goodbye." Gai gave him a small wave as he headed towards the garage to retrieve his motorcycle and head home. "Well guys, just us three. Want to come with me?"

"I thought you had to storm proof." Lee said.

"Not this house, it's been reinforced so many times I lost count. A tornado couldn't pull this place out of the ground." Gai said proudly, the homes now did look much more sturdy then those 2000 years ago.

"Sure then." Lee got up, followed by Shikamaru who took one last glance at the storm, wondering if it was anywhere near as powerful as the complete wipeout storm he'd faced before. "Where are you going?"

"Just have to take care of some business first." Gai said discardingly. "It shouldn't take too long.:

"Gai-sensei, do you have a phone I could use?" Shikamaru asked as he got in to the back seat of Gai's car.

Gai reached into his pocket and retrieved a cell phone. "Here you go."

"Thank you." Shikamaru said, quickly figuring out how to work this machinery and calling Naruto's apartment. "Hello, Naruto?"

"Shikamaru? The one from the pas right?" Naruto asked from the other side of the phone.

"Yeah it's me."

"Good thing you called." Naruto said, "Me, Sasuke and Konohamaru are leaving town today."

"Oh?"

"We have to get ready so I have to go."

"Alright." Shikamaru hung up and give the phone back to Gai. His eyes immediately wondered over to Lee who was looking out of the window, taking in the sights and memorizing the paths for future references. Which wasn't a bad idea because it was becoming more and more obvious that they weren't going to be going back home any time soon.

"Hey Shikamaru, look." Lee said, pointing out the window over the highway bridge they were traveling on to a field below. "Is it just me or dose that look familiar."

Shikamaru leaned forward a bit to get a view of what he was talking about, Lee was pointing to an orange fox with nine-tails. "This can't be happening." Shikamaru sighed "We have a problem, a really big one…" He turned to Gai.

"Is there anyway to kill that thing?" Gai asked from the drivers seat to an armored S.W.A.T truck.

"I haven't seen one yet." Iruka sighed. "And…could you just stop it, not kill it."

"Why?" Gai asked.

"We're from the past remember? And so is the Kyuubi." Past Kakashi said, "If you kill it-"

Gai nodded "It would changed the past, got it."

"Past? What do you mean from the past?" Future Kakashi asked.

There was a loud thump on the roof and the sound of scraping when the Nine-Tails dug it's claws through the steel. Growling could be heard from above as the claws went deeper.

"Bail!" Gai yelled, watching everyone open up their door and jump out before doing the same, slamming into the ground painfully hard and rolling forward from his momentum. Just as Gai came to a stop in the middle of a 4-way intersection, the armored truck went up in flames right before blowing apart and sending a rain of metal scraps over the area.

The metal rain was replaced by a real one, soft rain drops started to fall from the sky and wore down the fire. Revealing the orange fox standing alertly in the center, it's Chakra flared up suddenly, blowing away remaining flames. The ground started to shake in it's wake while the surrounding houses building, no higher then 3 stories, began to combust. Kyubi was using it's Chakra in the same way it's smaller offspring had done in the past.

"How is an overgrown fox doing all of this?" Future Kakashi asked uneasily, blocking his face as one of the explosions erupted nearby. Once again the bomb suit was working to his advantage.

"Chakra." Shikamaru said, moving backwards cautiously while the demon was ignoring them.

"It can't be Chakra, there isn't any…"Future Kakashi started to realize that they must have actually been from the past. There was no other way a typical fox…or anything else for that matter, could do this with out using Chakra. And the Jutsu Iruka used before, really was a Jutsu.

"So Kakashi, did you pay attention in history class?" Gai asked.

Future Kakashi realized what he meant immediately, then turned to his other self "How did you get here?"

"Kid named Gaara, he can go through time." Past Kakashi said, the other Kakashi figured that they weren't talking about the Gaara in his time. Which raised the question of why everyone seemed to have a double. "Iruka, come on."

"Huh? Why are we going?" The man asked.

"We can't do anything here, we have to get Gaara." Past Kakashi said.

"He's out of Chakra, what can he do?"

"We can think about it on the way." Kakashi leapt in to the air in a blur of speed, creating a small wind outward and kicking up some dust. Iruka nodded and left with a similar speed, only achieved by the use of Chakra.

"Things just keep getting stranger and stranger." The remaining Kakashi said. "Bullets don't work, grenades don't work…we'll need something bigger." He looked around as more S.W.A.T teams arrived from all sides of the 4-was intersection.

More teams of six or so emerged from the trucks, taking a knee on the broken ground and aiming with more of the standard issue riffles. A Lieutenant emerged from the dark blue armored truck behind them, immediately running up to Kakashi and Gai. "Sirs, you seem to be holding your fire, should we do the same?"

Gai and Kakashi looked at each other, "This is a lot of fire power, we may not have been able to do something individually but this might work." Gai said.

Kakashi shrugged "Go ahead."

The Lieutenant lifted two fingers and waved them toward the Nine-Tails. 24 riffles went off at once in a deafening noise and a light mist of gun smoke and falling shell casings.

"Hey guys look at this!" Konohamaru said excitedly, pointing towards the TV as Sasuke and Naruto walked into the room. "This fox is blowing stuff up."

"Whoa?" Naruto sat down on the bed, "Isn't that Shikamaru? And Lee?"

"Isn't that Kakashi and Iruka?" Sasuke asked, looking closer. "Rain started, we better hurry and get ready."

"Yeah, when the storm get's bad enough I'm sure people will come here looking for you." Naruto said to Konohamaru. "Don't you want to get anything from home before you leave?"

Konohamaru let his hands fall back on to the bed, looking out of the window towards the White-House which couldn't really be seen from here "Nah, not really…Who's car is that, I've never see it around here before." Konohamaru rolled over so that he was on his knees and his chin was on the bed and pointed to a black car outside.

"It's mine" Sasuke said.

Naruto looked out of the window, "Wow."

The bullets didn't have any affect on the Nine-Tails like before. Kyuubi turned around, wiping it's tails into the Men behind it and sent them along with their truck soaring through nearby homes. "Pull back! Get out of here!" Gai shouted, grabbing Lee and Shikamaru by the shoulder and pulling them away.

The demon was too quick, it sprang on to the truck to the left of it, smashing though the metal and erupting it into a powerful explosion. Through the flame it slashed through the surrounding men with it's claws and sending them flying with it's long tails.

The it growled and twitched it's ears, before sending it's Chakra into the other men and other two trucks along with nearby homes. Everything in a 200 foot radius went up in flames.

Luckily Gai, Kakashi, Lee, and Shikamaru were 500 feet away in-between two stores. Kakashi pulled a Cell phone out of his pocket, "We're taking this too lightly, if guns don't work we need something bigger."

Lee looked up at him, "Something bigger? What's bigger?"

Gai looked over at him in realization, "Kakashi? Are you sure about that?"

Kakashi only looked over at him, clearly going through with his plan. He lifted the phone to his ear and stuck his finger in his other ear to block out that Nine-tail's barks and growls. "Iruka, do it."

"Is it really that serous?" Iruka asked, standing in the take off pad in front of his Air force base and leaning against a large Jet, _his_ fighter plane. It was a chrome blue with the number '4477' labeled on the side, it wasn't the plane's serial number. It was a marking Iruka put on himself because the numbers had some type of meaning to him.

"Yes, move fast." Kakashi said, hanging up abruptly after a series of loud growls covered over the last of his words.

"Alright Kakashi." Iruka sighed, climbing into the pilot seat and strapping himself in. He knew he could get in a lot of trouble if he was doing this on his own. But technically Kakashi was his commanding officer, so what he was about to do was justified. Iruka pressed a few buttons, one of them lowering the windshield over him and the other was calibrate the X-35A JSF for flying in rain settings before starting the engine.

A strong burst of air swept over the ground and the other planes on the pad as Iruka's jet came to life and lifted into the air. Wasting no time, Iruka rose a few more feet and moved forward at gaining speeds towards the edge of the city.

The sound of a distant plane could be heard over the rain on the horizon.

"What's that?" Lee asked, looking towards the source of the sound.

"I'll explain latter, get down." Gai said, pushing Lee and Shikamaru to the ground as the sound seemed to pass over them.

Iruka did just that, passing over the Nine-Tails with out losing any speed, but in the process he dropped a Stinger missile which hit the demon head on. The ground erupted into a burst of flames, creating a shockwave that cascaded outward for a few 100 feet .

With the plane's agility Iruka turned around, decelerating while he descended and landed on the street a few feet away from where the fox lay. The demon wasn't dead, it' had been knocked unconscious by the blast through.

They'd finished just in time, Iruka and Kakashi from the past landed with high speed next to the sleeping demon with Gaara by their side. As well as Naruto, Sasuke, Konohamaru, Neji and Kiba.

The rain became increasingly hard, quickly extinguishing any flames left as an aftermath.


	22. Chapter 22: Sands of time Finale

Chapter 22: Sands of time Finale

This is it, the last chapter in this story, but don't worry, I have a sequel (Already posted) named Future Tense that is a continuation of this story. And if your wondering, it's going to be set in the future (There was no way in hell I was going to let go of a story premise this good). So don't worry, I have big plans for Sasuke, Naruto and Konohamaru. Heh heh.

And if your wondering, they wont appear in this chapter for this story. And sorry for the shortness.

_**Forever in your eyes by Mint Condition **_

"Talk about bad weather." Future Iruka said, standing back idle with Future Kakashi while every one else talked.

"Ironic." Future Kakashi sighed "I spent 2 days storm proofing and a fox was what destroyed my house."

-

_**It came unannounced **_

_**This feeling I feel for you **_

-

"You can stay with me." Iruka offered.

"I already stay with you." Kakashi said.

"Is it dead?" Konohamaru asked, apprehensively edging near the fox to touch it.

-

_**It came unannounced **_

_**This feeling I feel for you **_

-

"No." Past Kakashi said firmly, watching Konohamaru jump back a little. He feared death but after seeing what the Kyuubi could do, Konohamaru feared it more. Especially since blood was seeping up through it's fur, that bomb had really did a thorough job.

-

_**I had to know **_

_**Was it love you felt too **_

-

"I guess you have to get it back to the past now huh?" Gai asked, knelling beside the Nine-tails and watching the legendary fox. To think, all of the power they had in the past and the future was able to do this much with just one simple missile.

-

_**Not through your words **_

_**But the way that you looked at me **_

-

Truly ammunition was the anti-Jutsu, and the weapons used to fire them had to be the Anti-Chakra.

-

_**Told me just how **_

_**How much you really care **_

-

Gaara began concentrating, creating another perfect sand Hour glass in front of him. It was much easier now that he'd learned the technique to it. "Naruto." Gaara looked down at the boy standing at his side.

-

_**So don't you try and hide your feelings **_

_**Cause it's so very plain to see **_

-

"Huh?"

"No more moving through time."

-

_**I can see forever **_

_**Forever in you eyes **_

-

Naruto nodded "Yeah."

"Nothing but bad things have come out of it." Gaara said decidedly.

-

_**Just let your heart faithfully guide you **_

_**Guide you to love infinity **_

_**I can see forever **_

_**Forever in your eyes **_

-

"No." Lee objected. "That's not true." Being the optimist who looked on the positive side all of the time, he was easily able to see the good in this. "If we had never done this, none of us would be together, none of us would be as happy as we are now."

-

_**Here we are **_

_**Baby the time is right **_

-

Lee looked around the city of Konoha, his eyes tracing along the wet streets where street and traffic lights reflected off of. The different patterns of lights shining through the buildings of skyscrapers, towers and homes. The flow of head and tail lights from the cars traveling along the road, all of it painting an amazing picture better then any other. Being at one of the highest points in Konoha he could see all of this easily.

-

_**Now there's no doubt **_

_**What we feel is right **_

-

"And look at Konoha, this place would have never turned out this prosperous if we wouldn't have caused this storm." Lee said, wiping the rain from his eyes.

-

_**So just say the word **_

_**Cause I'm in it much too deep **_

-

"How do you cause a storm?" Gai asked.

-

_**To turn away **_

_**So please say you'll stay **_

-

Shikamaru looked at him, "Sending massive amounts of Chakra in to the air caused a storm to form 12 years later." Gai could only help but think that Shikamaru's long version explanation would bring up a lot more questions, but he refined from asking them for the moment.

-

_**So don't you try and hide your feelings **_

_**Cause it's so very plain to see **_

_**I can see forever **_

_**Forever in you eyes **_

-

"Everything may have seemed bad at the time, but in the long run all of it turned out good for everyone." Lee said.

-

_**Just let your heart faithfully guide you **_

_**Guide you to love infinity **_

-

Shikamaru folded his arms and watched Lee, his mind couldn't help but wonder back in time

"_It's dangerous to go back in to the past, changing the smallest thing could set off a horrible chain reaction." Shikamaru said, _

_-_

_**I can see forever **_

_**Forever in your eyes **_

_-_

"_But it could also change the world for the better! doing one thing could save a lot of people." Lee replied, sitting up and looked down at Shikamaru who now was looking up at him. _

"Maybe he was right." Shikamaru mumbled to himself, watching Lee admire everything around him.

-

_**Girl I wanna hold ya **_

_**Your head on my shoulder **_

_**With you I'll never tire **_

_**We'll take it higher and higher **_

-

"We have to get the Nine-Tails back before it wakes up." Kakashi said. "So we need to leave now."

Everyone nodded, Sasuke, Konohamaru, Neji, Kiba, and Iruka moved near Gaara. "Hey Lee, Shikamaru." Naruto called. "Come on, Are you guys coming or what?"

-

_**Girl I wanna hold ya **_

_**Your head on my shoulder **_

_**With you I'll never tire **_

_**We'll take it higher and higher **_

-

Shikamaru got out of his thoughts and started walking over toward the group.

"…I want to stay here." Lee said decidedly.

"What? Really?" Naruto asked. "I don't blame you."

-

_**I'll never hurt you baby **_

_**I'll never be untrue **_

_**All my hopes and dreams **_

_**Are realized in you**_

-

Gaara shrugged "Fine with me, but you do know this will most likely be permanent."

Lee nodded, "Yeah, I'm alright with that."

Shikamaru sighed. "I guess I have to stay behind too." He walked over to Lee, clearly wanting to stay in the first place. He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to make this permanent, but if Lee was going to stay, he was going to stay with him. Uncertainty aside, there wasn't any place he wouldn't follow Lee, given the right prompting.

-

_**I'll never leave you sugar **_

_**I'll never leave your side **_

_**Our love is here forever **_

_**I can see it in your eyes **_

-

"Alright, see ya guys." Kiba said. "Maybe I'll bury a note or something, see if it reaches you."

"Alright." Lee said. "I'll look for it." Lee's eyes drifted over to Neji, who watched him with an characteristic melancholy.

-

_**Girl I wanna hold ya **_

_**Your head on my shoulder **_

_**With you I'll never tire **_

_**We'll take it higher and higher **_

-

"Good luck." He said, turning away and watching the Nine-Tails.

Lee knew it was hard for Neji to stay something like that to him. "Well…it's been fun." He was directing that more towards his now former rival then towards anyone else. If it wasn't for Neji he wouldn't be as strong as he was now, striving to be better then him managed to give him resilience. Just like Gai said it would, having a rival did help him in more ways then one.

Gaara started spinning the hourglass, and just like that they faded as if they were never there.

Was left Lee watching the spot where they had been. "Goodbye guys."

-

_**Girl I wanna hold ya **_

_**Your head on my shoulder **_

_**With you I'll never tire **_

_**We'll take it higher and higher **_

-

Thank you every one who reviewed! Everyone who reads a story, please review, it really is the life blood of an author. I wouldn't have continued this story if I thought no one was reading or in other words if I got little or no reviews.

SDI Hypervelocity


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